Shadow in the Sun
by SapSorrow
Summary: Roman AU, Thor is a Gladiator in the Roman Colosseum, a captive from the wars against Germany, Loki is a Roman Nobleman, or something that looks a lot like it and everything Thor hates. When Loki sees Thor in the arena he knows he has to have him. Contains both non/ dub con and consensual sex, will attach warnings to all relevant chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**Shadow in the Sun**

**Roman AU**

**First chapter contains graphic violence, also to animals – it's the arena, I'm sorry. **

**1.**

There is a city that stands at the centre of the world; a city that is itself the beating heart of that tumultuous, wheeling world. The city is a dream, a promise, an ideal. The city is a warning, a fleck of dust in the eye of a dying god. City of colour, of noise and stench. City of sun and sweat and sensation, of glory, of honour, corruption and sin. It is the flash of azure and gold on a pale wrist, it is the putrescence of a dead dog's decaying arse running into the gutter. City of life and of death – that is all the stuff of life and a thousand new ways to die. There is a city that redefines the title and the city is Rome.

Height of July, the year is 14 AD. The dust rising from the parched and cracking ground stifles and threatens to fill the nostrils unto death, but the stench from the overheated wooden tenement blocks is worse and still Loki would have happily taken all of that in twice rather than to have just foolishly taken a glance beyond the silken curtains of his lectica. He wrinkles his nose and lets the emerald curtain drop, wrinkles his nose and falls back into the soft feather cushions with a groan of disgust, face contorted in distaste.

"Honestly – why?" he wails to his companion – "Why when I could be sat at home in the shade of sweet smelling citrus tree, good book in my lap, glass of wine in my hand, enjoying the fact of the shade in the glare of the sun – why then am I here? Here where it fucking stinks and on my way to a _game –_" he sneers the word out with all the derision he feels it deserves – "You know I hate the games."

His friend just laughs at him good naturedly –

"You should get out more Hermes –" he laughs and Loki sighs, a little reassured out of his irritation by the now familiar nick-name – "These games are to celebrate my uncles' succession and being brought to the people on _my _commission – _that's _why you're here."

Loki looks at his companion sharply; _succession _he thinks – is that what we have now? _Dear Republic, we are gathered here to say our goodbyes – _he wisely keeps these thoughts to himself and arches an eyebrow.

"If that distinct odour of the district that I smell is anything to go by, and an indication of my _getting out more, _I do think I'll continue to stay in thank you very much."

"Yes, I do agree it is a little ripe around here."

"Ripe? It's positively stewing! That's not even the worst of it Gaius – I mean did you _see _them? Those _people- _if you can call them that – gawping at us with mouths to catch flies. Ugh! They're just – they're so _ugly." _Loki pouts, sullen and cantankerous at having to be exposed to such creatures; for ugliness is perhaps the only crime that still distresses him. Though if he could have, which he could not, seen what they looked like from the plebeian viewpoint he would have not been surprised at being so stared at with the picture they made – in a lectica fit for a future emperor, carried by four men, shielded elegantly from those rheumy and reddened eyes by drapes of the softest silk, billowing in snow white and emerald green to match the upholstery within. Himself a curious and pale apparition, held above from the common masses like a silver birch tree, clinging above a soiled and rushing river on roots more tentative and fragile than they would at first appear.

_Ugliness. _He sniffs, petulantly, to himself as they come to a halt and he steps gingerly down into the cesspit of the street There is plenty of it to be seen. Rome is bustling today, with the festivity of holiday and the crowds outside the coliseum are thick and ripe. Loki's delicate lip twitches in disgust and, caught between the crowd and the sunshine he feels sweaty and sullied within seconds.

"If any of them touch me I am going to scream," he announces pristinely, steering clear of everyone as though they were ghastly bugs that might jump onto him as they make their way through them and in by the entrance reserved for high ranking officials and nobility. They weave their way up to the top seats and there, above the sweltering masses Loki breathes more easily. There is a breeze up here and servants bearing drinks and fans. Nevertheless he sinks into one of the best seats wondering how long before he can get away with leaving.

Loki slumps into his seat with a perfectly pitched, practised expression of boredom and infinite superiority. As his friend chats to more congenial acquaintances he watches the games already in progress, unprepared to be anything other than highly unimpressed.

For many dragging minutes he _is _distinctly unimpressed, amusing himself more dwelling with sour pleasure on his own superior sense of taste than in actually watching the gladiators fight. Certainly, he thinks, there never ceases to be a frisson of elation to be had in watching men die but it seems dreamlike from up here and far away. Closer are the spectators below that bay and jabber worse than monkeys. Truly, he thinks, this is humanity at its depressing worst. The gladiators in their messy deaths have more nobility than these creatures do in their raucous lives.

"I'd kill them all," he mutters to himself, fingers twisting like snakes around the fine stem of his glass. He wonders if anyone else here is thinking about throwing the spectators to the gladiators, decides that the answer is _probably not, _and congratulates himself on his own elevated thought processes.

One of the fighters on the sand catches Loki's eye like a shiny jewelled trinket glinting in the sun. An especially pretty piece of jewellery that draws you to look closer at the vendors' stall. This one _is _lighter than all the rest, brighter, shining truly in between the heat haze and the blue. There is dirt and sunshine caught in his hair and, even from this distance Loki can see, crackling fire burning in his eyes. Sun sparks like a forge spitting, off the drops of blood that fall from mighty but scratched up arms into the dust and he glistens as though something scaled in oil and in sweat. He is golden and glorious. It suddenly occurs to Loki that he has been watching this one with something almost like interest for quite some time. He has outlasted everything it seems the arena can throw at him. A pitchfork tearing the helmet from his head reveals the bared teeth and golden hair as he stands like Mars triumphant over the body of the Parthian behind the trident. Before long there is, too, what looks like half a pack of feral wolves dead at his feet and he, glistening and chiselled as if from rock or gold glares up at the crowd with challenging eyes that call out, almost roaring – _what more have you to throw at me?!_

But the crowd wants a feast and it always has more to give and to demand. It will not forgive one who dispatches all enemies so fiercely and efficiently and yet refuses to take evident joy in doing so. They – the human wolves – enjoy it vicariously through this, their champion. They who if placed here would all fall at the first attack – Loki despises them all dearly – but not so this gorgeous Germanic Apollo. No in him Loki sees perhaps the only other worthy creature besides himself in this whole arena of fools, and he finds himself watching more intently than he means to, green eyes narrowed and glinting in the sun as he leans forward, chin resting on his hand.

A volley of arrows flies through the air and the crowd cheers as the newcomer rides in like a centaur. The Archer has acquired such notoriety in recent months that even Loki has heard of him. They say that he has never been seen to miss a target; that his aim and his vision are next to godly. The say the gods in error rendered him deaf and in return gave him his eyesight twice. They say a lot of foolish things, all of which could just as well be true. There is a fire in those vaunted eyes as well, though it is a cold fire and does not arrest Loki like the blaze he can see consuming the German. He watches him knock arrows out of the air with his bare hands, as though they were flies, then using his sword to shield himself and to cut them in two as they keep coming. For a while he simply stands in place, sword wheeling arcs, eyes following the archer's galloping circular progress until when he finally moves it is to swing himself in a merciless sweep behind the ebony horse and to severe the beast's back legs as though cutting a scythe through wheat. Even from up high Loki can hear the animal scream and only this, after all the human death, makes him wince, not even the sight or smell of the blood that sprays arterial across the sand and coating the man from head to toe. In a swift move he leaps over the animal, mercifully taking it out in a single swing, mounting the fallen archer before he has a chance to move and holding his sword poised as the crowd roars.

The gladiator's eyes roam the crowd for a signal and, needless to say, all thumbs turn emphatically down in the sign for mercy. But of course they do, for the one they call Hawk- Eye is everybody's favourite and, from the royal seat, the recently crowned emperor concurs.

Just when Loki is beginning to lapse back into boredom at the predictability of these events, something occurs on the sand to cause the crowd to waver in its cheering. As the German helps the Dacian archer to his feet he pats him hard on the back like a friend in view of them all. He does not let go the Archer's hand and they punch the sky together, sharing a roar that does not reach over the crowd but can be seen in their bared teeth and snarling lips. They do it as one in a silent display of solidarity that slips unease into the cheers of the crowd.

_We are men. _The gesture says – _we are human. We are victorious this day and we will not be ignored. _

While the masses shuffle and mutter at this display of blatant humanity from those they comfort themselves on viewing as animals, Loki grins widely and crookedly in appreciation.

"How much –" hoarsely, throat dry, turning to his friend and starting again –

"How much do you suppose –"

"You'd buy old Hawk-eye? After this? Dream on my friend."

"No not him – the other – I mean, is a gladiator even for sale?"

Gaius laughs and slaps him on the shoulder.

"My friend, you _do not _get out enough – these day's _everything's _for sale."

_x_


	2. Chapter 2

**2.**

Rome is a plague currently endeavouring to over-run the world. It is a blistering pustule on the arse end of humanity. It is a dried and used up whore soiling the streets of decency; no beauty, no humanity. If there was ever a dream that was Rome, then somebody woke up from it a long time ago, sweaty, stinking, pissing themselves and screaming.

These were Thor's first deductions on seeing the city through the clawed- at bars of a cage – and those first impressions remained his only as he was trained up, dragged all the way, to fight in the greatest arena in the empire.

The only thing that stank worse than this pestilent city, he thought, was the situation in which he now found himself. It had been a cold, filthy, exhausting year, caked with mud and shivering on the Rhine, and he had been consoling himself with the fast approach of either one of two comforting options; a return home in victory or a noble death in battle. Instead Rome had hit back hard and fast to compensate for their loss of an entire legion – something Thor had, perhaps not too quietly, prided himself upon – and now here he was, being led in chains to the blister that was Rome, a slave and prisoner of a war he had not started.

After that first journey through the streets – in what should have been his shame – he saw little of the city. As for shame, that only came later, not in the arena so much as out of it where he learned the depths to which the nobility, even more than the mob, could sink. He learnt that he was to be put to the trade, not only of death and entertainment- but that he was available for hire to anyone who could afford it, to satisfy the proclivities of many a Roman noblewoman who would pay highly for a night or an hour with their gladiator of choice.

You never saw Rome for what she was more honestly than staring up at it from the filth of the nobility's beds. It was a slippery climb each day to crawl back to being above it all, a scramble up rocks slicked in brave men's blood. Yet he scrambled. It tore at the soul and the fingertips but he rose above it all. He was better than this. He sought hard for a cool detachment from which to despise this so-called gentility that forced him into in and then kicked him out of its bed each day to die, for all they cared, in the sand and sweat and the stare of the crowd. No, that cool glacial distance was beyond him, and he settled instead for a fiery, scornful hate that crackled dully in the cage of the heart – letting it out only in the arena when called upon to save his own life only by the slaughter of men and beasts he had come to respect.

As he returns through the underground doors that day Thor's heart both leaps and surges in stages. As their clasped hands fall he locks eyes with the Dacian whose look of fear and understanding must have matched his own. Rousing relief that he had not had to kill the man – of whom he knew little but respected greatly – he was a captive like himself, with a wife left behind to lead her own armies in wars beyond the east of the empire. Beyond that he knew little more than the shared understanding of dead men who refuse to lie down or be still. Elation at the stand they have made, though he knows not to what end, comes next and with it horror at the realisation of how flagrantly they have dared the wrath of crows and eagles alike; those birds that constitute the flock of the mob and those who sit aloft on their perches that both peck their low and greedy beaks into the bones of real men. How he detests them all.

The traders and trainers- all of them mill around the gladiators cursing and angry and they themselves left standing detached from it, Thor chained in a filter of light from the cracks in the stone walls above them, as these people argue and debate his fate. Suddenly into the medley of bickering slides a new voice, smooth as the slip of cold steel caressing the face. A higher pitched voice – wrong like a trapped bird in this foul place.

"Excuse me, whom might I talk to about the purchase of a slave?"

Thor sneers to himself, instantly classifying the speaker as an arrogant, self-absorbed, finicky and pretentious little prick. That _voice, _though – like molten silver, an oil slick pouring into the ears. He wants to squeeze the sound out of him – the very life – out of him and all his kind. He smirks to hear even his owners reply with condescension – at least at first. The smell of money always awakens something that looks like respect in such men as own him and this voice, this newcomer, _reeks _of it.

It is more to take his mind off the fear of his own punishment – whatever it may be that they devise – that Thor looks up at all, whilst the stranger – a magpie in this ugly nest – speaks with the slave owner, now in less audible tones. He is – arresting somehow, Thor is surprised to find. Arresting like a jewel-bright snake in long grass.

He stands in the shadows of the columns, dark wings of shape cutting the already angular face up further, but the eyes are piercingly bright, even in the shade, cutting like moonlight dancing off a blade. That bird-like glare, the arching eyebrows, the rapidity of his gestures -they make Thor think all too briefly of flying, and just for a moment it is a sweet, delicious feeling – before he remembers that this vile creature is the embodiment of everything he hates.

So why then does he thrill with the urge to crush the breath from that pale throat? Why does the thought please him so _intimately?_ Why marvel so at skin so pale as to have resisted all the effects of Rome's punishing summer? Why does he find himself wondering if those crooked lips are as hard as they look or deceptively soft beneath that twisted, thin lipped sneer?

He looks down at his own hands, gloved in blood and streaked with grime and gore – just for him to touch the stranger's pale skin would sully it immeasurably with his filth. The thought is alarmingly intoxicating. The stranger's hands as they dance and flutter in illustration of his every word are pale as rain and slight as a girl's. It occurs to him that, nobleman or not, the man is _nervous _down here, perhaps even just being amongst people in general, a deep nervousness of which Thor suspects he is himself at least subconsciously aware and so he masks it with the cruelty of aristocracy.

"I don't care if he's not for sale – I'll pay you twice his worth!" comes that ringing voice, rising shrill like a bird of prey in pain, jarring and awful to the ears. It is the voice of a spoilt child, a brat incapable of comprehending any other outcome than that he will get what he wants and everything he wants. It is only when those bright eyes flick over to him directly, like the flash of a concealed weapon, that Thor realises the man is haggling over _him_.

On the one hand, he thinks, this could be the saving of him – when he had just minutes ago been confronted only with an array of possible punishments for a perceived insubordination hanging in the balance. On the other hand, this man has a dangerous and hungry look and Thor does not like to imagine what his intentions with him could be. He has rarely seen anyone he could so easily and quickly deduce as immensely untrustworthy, indeed extremely slippery- and he is more wary than he could have imagined of this snake in human form.

It is with a sinking heart that he watches the two men shake hands – though the stranger retracts his a little more quickly than is entirely polite from the trader's which is doubtless sweaty at best. Thor sees him scowl in distaste and wipe his hand none too subtly on the edge of his robe. Thor cannot help but notice the slightness of the wrist that he thinks – _I could break with one hand. There's only so much you could do to me. _

The transaction now completed, the man takes a step towards Thor with a grin in his eyes that quite clearly states – _you are mine now. I can do what I will with you. _He stops two metres from Thor, like a dancer frozen suddenly in step and those delicate nostrils flare in clearly nauseated disgust. The bright eyes rake him from head to toe, like an animal at market, taking in the blood and grime and stench. Thor feels he should have been used to this by now, but something in that supercilious gaze makes him feel more than usually disgusting. He hates this man for making him feel this way, hates him for thinking he can buy him, wants to scream _I am a prince you worthless filth! It is you and your kind that have brought me to this pass!_

To his continued horror he sees a spark in the man's eyes as he looks right back into fires and fury that he cannot keep from blazing in his own. He sees the green-silver eyes narrow as though reading right into what Thor is thinking, seeing it all and smiling detestably, turning and walking away as though Thor is no more than a decent choice of aperitif for the evening's supper.

"He stinks," Thor hears him say on the way out, waving a dismissive hand at the guard as he flounces past – "have him cleaned up and brought to me." He sounds almost bored about it. Thor watches him go and his heart churns and rankles deep and bitter. The strongest emotion he has felt since this foul city sunk him into apathy and it is hatred.

He hates this man for looking at him the way he does, for making him feel the way he does now. Hates him for his neatness, and his precious little mannerisms. Hates him for the lying traitor to his own country he must surely be all this time he pretends to be a respectable Roman citizen. For he is not – Thor realises – his accent is too clipped, too perfect, his skin too pale and his look altogether too closed, distant and strange, like something submerged and far from the sun. He hates that he himself seems to be able to see so far inside this foul creature as though he had known him his entire life, brothers beneath the skin. Brothers that hate one another to death. He hates that – hating the man or not – he _cares _enough to hate, he is _interested. _

And yes, he hates him too for his exquisite outward appearance of beauty, for stirring something in him more primal and deadly than anything he has had yet to demonstrate in the arena.

_x_

**I guess this chapter is the last one that's safe for work! Anything beyond this point probably not so much! Non-con to follow, I'm warning you now, cause I usually don't non-con for this pairing at all but what do you do? It's a slave type story! **

**I must also add that while I've made every effort towards historical accuracy and studied the crap out of the period I'm sure to have still got something wrong. Feel free to correct me, I like to know stuff, but y'know – it's a fictional AU. But then so is history in it's way, there's a fine line between history and fiction anyways. **

**Finally thank you all my lovely reviewers, I've been utterly overwhelmed by the amount of positive feedback on this so far and I hope you all don't go off it when it starts to get grim! :-) **


	3. Chapter 3

**Warnings, this chapter contains fairly graphic non-con and Loki being a complete and utter jerk. If you don't like please feel free to skip the next two chapters. :-)**

**3.**

Loki's house on the edge of The Appian Way is amongst the finest of the district; a haven of taste and minimalism, combined with an air of coolness and utmost class. Loki loves it unreservedly, the quiet and solitude, the faint smell of citrus, the very columns and bones of the place he has made his own. It is with the deepest relief that he returns to it that evening, heading early to bed and the dark cool sweetness of being out of the glare of sun and crowd. He lies in the dark, skin burning in the blissful arms of the cool, soft sheets, images of blue eyes flashing fiery behind his eyelids. He hisses into the dark, a twisted whisper amongst the sheets, breaching the place between asleep and awake with the gladiator's glorious strength upon his mind and his own hands upon his cock.

The next morning feels like a child's day of festivity. Loki wakes early and excited, pleased with himself that he has managed to wait until today to unwrap his new present. Moreover, the sun is still punishing, and today he does not have to go out in it. He determines to savour the anticipation and busy himself with whatever distraction he can find for as long as possible. There is a spring in his step this morning, and he greets each relevant servant with actual cordiality. By late morning he has ensconced himself in a silver couch that he has had brought outside, settled comfortably beneath the lemon tree by the pond with a cool glass of grape juice and the complete works of Ovid.

Alternately reading and reclining on his back Loki revels in the triviality of today, gazing up at the bright sky through the web of fine branches while two slaves wave palm fans constantly and unobtrusively near him and a third waits a little way off to heed the next shouted command.

When the slave's next call comes in the early afternoon, shortly after lunch, Loki makes sure to phrase it in the most casual, could-not-care-less tone he can possibly muster. He congratulates himself for what he perceives as incredible self-control in having waited this long to play with his new toy.

Thor, when he is sent for, is already tired and unimpressed with the entire set up. Though it had hardly been possible to form real friendships with men he had been forced to fight, there had least been a common bond there and he had taken strength, particularly from The Archer, in the stoicism and finely maintained pride with which he faced their situation. For himself, Thor knew that he had not even left as much behind to miss or to mourn as The Dacian had.

But he takes from the strength now as he is taken away, taking farewells only in eloquent silence. He bears it patiently as he is cleaned up and made presentable purely for the amusement of another. It is not for the first time. But when, after a dark and uncomfortable journey through the streets, he arrives at a strange new dwelling, and is summarily dismissed to the common slaves' quarters for the night – it stings. It rankles almost worse than had he been instantly put to use as this so called nobleman's whore – something he nervously suspects could be his fate here. Nevertheless, he does not relish the prospect and the next day finds him waking with spirits as low as Loki's are high.

He determines in spite of everything to meet whatever the day throws at him with honour and whatever dignity he can maintain, and when he is escorted, hands chained behind his back, across the wide expanse of garden he looks down to no-one. When he is pushed on to his knees before his new master however he looks resolutely down at the ground, refusing to give the satisfaction of even looking him in the eye. At least not for now.

Loki dismisses his attendants to a safe but discreet distance with an arrogant wave of the hand. He remains seated, eyes drinking in his prize. He has become beyond skilled at not reacting when it is in his benefit not to, but cannot resist moistening his lips with the tip of his tongue delightedly upon gazing at his beautiful slave; as though in anticipation of a delicious treat. The gladiator on his knees gleams in the sunlight, golden and bronze, muscles rippling like water, waves just waiting to crash. Loki's eyes narrow in satisfaction – for better yet, he is now clean and smells pleasantly of sun and wind, stone and leather. It is a perfectly intoxicating combination and he is surprised to find himself actually a little overwhelmed by the gladiator's dazzling proximity. He dislikes the feeling and chooses to seek out what will irritate him instead.

"Look at me, slave."

Thor does not budge, nor heed the imperious command. But this one does not play fair or by any rules and he feels a merciless hand yank his head back by the hair.

"I said, _look at me," _Loki spits, a snarl in his voice, though his blood dances and skin sings at the warm rough softness beneath the cruel touch; like trying to pet a lion. He likes making it sound as though he is simply _furious, _but if his pulse even quickens, it is with enjoyment at the excuse both to touch and to hurt his slave. He knows the gladiator is not afraid of him and is intrigued, impressed and angered to a pleasant tingle by the growling hatred that glares up at him out of those stormy eyes.

"Have you _any _idea what I could do to you?" It is half a question, half a threat and he both smiles it and sneers it out. Thor resolutely says nothing, not even following Loki with his eyes as the smaller man rises and circles him like a hyena, tracing idle – not – so – idle patterns across Thor's skin with insidious trailing fingers. He can feel how much Thor wants to flinch away from his touch and can feel too that he does not.

"I could _break _you," he whispers, despicably intimately, into Thor's ear – "Or have you destroyed – it would make no difference to me."

As he prowls back into Thor's vision, he finds himself disliking the way the slave looks at him, almost but not quite smiling as though he can see through the lie. As though he could see through every lie Loki ever told. As though – but it is surely preposterous – he has looked straight into Loki, and seen all that he really is and pretends to be. It un-nerves him – when he has fooled everyone for two decades now, how _could _this unknown slave see right through him? Almost as though testing he spits in Thor's face, and is gratified when he finally flinches – slightly; a grimace that he puts quickly away but that is visible nonetheless.

Loki settles back into his chair, regarding Thor steadily as he unfolds his own attire with an attitude of perfectly languorous, dismissive boredom. Thor is not fooled in the slightest by the message he is meant to be receiving – that his humiliation means nothing to his supposed master, and he files his awareness of how Loki wants things to appear away for later.

"Suck it," Loki orders, lip curling, cock out and urgently hard, as he has been for quite some time now. Thor simply looks at him as though he is making his own rapid decision, making it as plain as his eyes can say that he could just as easily not do this if he really wished it – not wholly caring whether this is true or not.

Loki bites his lip until it hurts to stifle a groan as Thor takes his cock in his mouth, with agonising slowness, staggering a little, even on his knees, for his inability to use his hands. Loki is almost unsure of what feels better – that delicious mouth against his throbbing flesh or the eyes that glare up at him blazing in sublime hatred. But those lips and tongue work in the manner of one who has never done this before and yet, at the same time tease and torment him to the point where he no longer feels himself to be the one in control of this situation as much as he would like to. It feels unreal – like he has wanted this his entire life and even though he feels the slave smirk around him to feel it, he cannot quite hold back on every low breathy gasp of pleasure. Aware too of his fingers, digging and scratching into the slave's hair to hold him in place – he lets go quickly before it is too late – to come snarling and violently across that beautiful, satisfyingly disgusted face.

His satisfaction however does not last long beyond the time it takes to rearrange his attire once more. He looks down for a moment, smiling to see those downcast eyes and that noble face painted and dripping with his seed. Feeling that detested gaze Thor looks up slowly, fury and ice warring in his eyes. It is a potent combination that, for a moment, makes Loki think only of making use of him again. But then Thor smiles mirthlessly and very quietly, gently and intently says –

"You are no Roman."

The shot flies truer than one of Hawkeye's arrows, as Thor had known it would and Loki snarls, starting and defensive as though hit in the heart by it.

"You're nothing," Thor adds, just as gently, firing straight into the wound already made. It scorches, the wound, and Loki feels it as least as strong as the pleasure of mere moments ago. _How? _He thinks wildly – how has this mere slave named aloud within seconds of each other both his deepest public and private fears? He wonders all this in the space of a split second before dealing Thor a vicious backhand across the face, violent enough to throw his head back, spraying fine droplets of blood over the perfect gold and green of Loki's robe, an ugly gash appearing across Thor's face from a jagged emerald ring on Loki's hand. Thor bites his lip – the blow is somehow kaleidoscopically painful, even after the blows and arrows of the amphitheatre.

"You _will _be brought to bow before this _nothing, _slave," he snarls, teeth bared.

"Never," Thor spits back, blood in the spit and Loki raises his hand as though to strike him again, before dropping it, soft as a snake changing its mind about when to strike. Loki nods, keeping his breath and his words under icily balanced control, his voice freezing in the midst of the heat –

"You will," he repeats. Thor grins in a disarming parody of friendliness, leaning in ever so slightly to mock Loki's disgustingly intimate threatening tone –

"Go fuck yourself," he says, with a little jerk of the head, as gentle and dismissive as he would make a request from a servant he did not like.

Loki's eyes narrow and delicate nostrils flare, so incensed as to remain silent for several stunned seconds. When he does then yell it cuts through the afternoon like an animal's howl –

"_Guards!" _he screeches and they come running, knowing better by now, all of them, than to test _that _tone in the master's voice. When they approach Loki's face is a mask of fury – "Take this _filth _out to the courtyard," he snaps, pointing an imperious finger that nevertheless trembles slightly, at Thor – "And fetch me my whip."

The very request starts to make him instantly feel ever so slightly better.

_x_

**Yeah, this is the jerkiest Loki I've written yet, though I hope to make him likeable if not redeemable by the end of this – certainly not for the next couple of chapters! In case you hadn't guessed the next chnapter will contain torture also continued non-con. Yaay? :-) **


	4. Chapter 4

**More warnings! Contains graphic non – con torture and horrible sex, cause I'm on a roll now. Please do not read if this will upset you – I am not kidding!**

**Avoid or enjoy! (I won't judge!) :-)**

It is a wonder to Thor that today, for all its awfulness, does not threaten to be, or somehow feel at all, like the worst day of his life. He still reserves that right for the day he was captured, or perhaps a day yet to come. Still, today is not that day. It occurs to him with no small amount of satisfaction that Loki really cannot hurt him half as much as he can Loki. That in spite of everything, the hatred boiling in him now at least feels better than the indifference he has laboured under these past few months.

He does not let them drag him up the incline as he suspects Loki would like, instead walking with his head held high again – now that he does not have to be looking at him. Loki has already stormed on ahead in a shimmering white and green maelstrom of rage. Unwise though it is, Thor is tempted to laugh at the tempestuousness of the snake's emotions, slithering so blatantly to him, just beneath that perfect skin – and how easily he can see through him. Loki is like broken glass, he thinks; see-through but jagged, all too capable of cutting ad drawing blood. But beautiful; oh yes, with a fragile, heart-breaking beauty that glitters in the sunlight.

When they reach the courtyard Loki is already standing there bristling, still too angry to speak. He points imperiously to the central pillar against which Thor is now unceremoniously flung. He refuses to make a sound as his face is crushed up against the (curiously pleasant) cold marble and he finds himself staring up close at the dried blood in the cracks that tells him he is far from the first to be thrown into this position.

He cannot see behind him but hears a sharp click of the fingers that can only be Loki, footsteps approaching and the stroke of the bullwhip like a serpent slithering down his spine and a whisper like a lover's in his ear –

"You belong to me, slave, and you will learn it as you will learn manners." Thor entirely refuses to react, Loki's breath like a kiss against his face and then terribly his kiss like poison branding into the back of his neck.

Loki turns, not quite sure why he did that and hands the whip to his chief servant snapping –

"Am I expected to flog my own slaves now? Do it – and make it good."

Thor grits his teeth, wishing there was something better to focus his gaze on than the dried blood in the marble cracks, grim rivers in a pale desert. But his resolve proves unnecessary for the servant is clearly half hearted in following such orders for though the first lash stings he is easily able to bear it in silence.

He bears them all in silence, five, ten, twenty, forehead on cool marble, chained hands interlocking fingers tight. A grunt at the cracking of the lash across and across the back but nothing more until Loki is as infuriated as Thor could ever have wished.

"Give me that!" he hears him snap as the lashing subsides. Out of the corner of his eye Thor sees a servant girl crouched in a courtyard corner watching him with dark eyes full of fear and sympathy. Somehow this is worse than pain, worse than indignity – the fact that once again it is all being observed. And the _sympathy_is the worst of all that has happened yet. He looks back at the dried brown streaking the white.

"You'll be next!" Loki is berating his servant – "By all the gods how many times? If he's not bleeding you're doing it wrong!"

He hears Loki stride back and forth and feels wicked fingernails against his stinging but as yet unbroken skin –

"Barely a mark –" he hears Loki mutter, disgustedly – "Show them how it's done –" and gods Loki may be small but he is viciously strong, for the next lash whistles through the air and slices into his skin, burning like acid. He screams in spite of all his intentions otherwise, mortified to hear Loki's instant hiss of gratification. He does not stop – not longer than to let the stinging dull to a vicious throb then slams in with the next lash with impeccably awful timing. Thor screams. He screams himself hoarse and then more until it feels like his throat is bleeding. Loki is an absolute fucking _expert_at this, each lash curling just enough around to lick his ribs, chest and hips like tongues of fire.

Loki for his part watches the arc of the whip and the crimson stripes it paints across his golden canvas that it is so nearly a shame to ruin. He grins, his cock unspeakably hard and with just one more thing needed to guarantee satisfaction –

"Who do you belong to, slave?" he barks.

Thor will not. Damn it. He clenches down on the pain with which his head already swims. Still standing. Damn it all. Still standing.

"My. Self." He grits out. The pleasure of defiance and of hearing Loki growl only gets him through the nest three lashes. By the eighth he is on his knees at last, shaking, his face treacherously wet.

"_Who. Do you belong to?_"

"No man." He knows it is the final stand now, but he will make it even from his knees. The final lash crashes across his back and it feels like it will surely rip the skin from his flesh. Loki, the tyrant, his damnation and his demon, kneels then in front of him, gentle fingers raising Thor's tear stained face to look up at him, pouting tenderly in a mad, sweet whisper –

"Who do you belong to?"

And he cannot, simply cannot take another lash, nor permit himself the mercy of fainting.

"You," he groans brokenly, Loki forcing his gaze to his face – "You. _Master."_His lip curls around the word in anger but it seems to suffice for now for Loki smiles, smiles beatifically, for all the world like a god of beneficence. So happy, like a child's, that innocent smile of positive joy. So beautiful, Thor thinks wretchedly, dear gods so beautiful. He has never in his life felt so utterly undone and confused.

He wonders if it is just the pain or something worse. Looking into those silvery glittering

eyes, he is lost from all reason. _What the hell is this?_ he thinks feverishly, feeling himself

floating somewhere on the border between hysterical laughter and tears. Loki presses a gentle hand to his face and he shudders, both disgusted and horrifically grateful for the softness of the touch.

Loki rises and Thor is horrified to find himself distraught with wanting him to stay. But he does not go, more is the real pity. He stands for a moment, hands on hips, looking down at his damaged but _no –_he thinks – _not quite broken _toy; looks down and then kicks him, with savage grace in his already bruised ribs. Thor crumples, too winded to shout out the blinding pain of it, stars firing behind the eyes, an explosion in the brain. Loki does not give him time to curl up with the pain before dragging him back onto his knees by the hair, his tortured back screaming at the strain.

It is hopeless, illogical and useless to offer up such automatic silent prayer as _gods, please no –_for surely any gods that are watching must condone his disgrace. The fault is brief and fleeting, discarded as the waste of time it is and he feels Loki's cock against his blood – slicked backside with all the horror of inevitability. He succeeds – barely – in not screaming when Loki's blood soaked fingers force their way into him but not when he then follows this mercilessly with his cock. At least screaming scrunches his eyes up so as not to have to witness anybody's damnable sympathy. Funny, the sort of thing you think of in these moments.

For Loki the intensity is no less, except that for him it is a blinding, angry and white hot bliss. He rams into Thor brutally in his own stubborn silence, as much as for Thor's pain and degradation as for his own pleasure, although the one is undeniably immensely heightened by the other. His snarls heaved out in silence he braces himself using Thor's hair as though it were reigns on an unbroken horse – not eager to stain himself with the mess of blood he has made of his back. Yet it is unavoidable and more, when at the point of orgasm, coming deep into that tight, unwilling body with a final brutal thrust, the temptation is too much and he rips his nails down across the torn skin, catching his fingertips in the cuts the whip has made. The earth – shattering pleasure throws his head back to the sky, Thor's screams deafening and glorious as a call to war in the ears.

When he feels his knees capable Loki rises and Thor falls, only just conscious, on the ground. Loki looks down at himself, wondering why he does not feel as good as he should - the blood stains on his hands and tunic swim before his eyes and he feels dizzy himself. It cannot be _remorse,_ for he does not remember that feeling, but he feels curiously sick and then – when the sickness has swum on by – feels nothing. Nothing at all. And frighteningly detached from his own self.

"Take it away and clean it," he hears himself say, as if from far away – "Bring it back when it looks nicer and clean this courtyard - and get me a bath."

_x_

Ten minutes later in the pleasantly tepid water of the bath Loki feels no closer to having got back to himself. He cannot understand or account for this curious feeling of sadness, of feeling _lost._Of not knowing who he is. How can he, when there is also this strange feeling bubbling in him as though he would like to say _sorry –_to a _slave._It is unprecedented, tilting his world completely off – kilter. Like down an incline that never ends, the surfaces around him rushing at impossible angles. He wants to be made still. He wants, alarmingly, for the slave to make him still, kiss him, rock him like a child and tell him it's all alright.

Alone in a silver bath in the beautiful room of a palatial house he suddenly feels terrifyingly small. Twisted and ugly. Like he has not felt since – anything he could wish to remember. He scoops water in his hands to splash himself and wash the strangeness all away. Looking down he sees the water, pink and threaded with red. It brings him back to himself with a sickening slamming rush and he is _horrible,_he sees, vile and disgusting. He starts to shake, wishing he could get away from the repulsive thing in here, in this very bath with him. But he cannot. He never has been able to. It hates him, claws at him, repels him, _is _him – and nothing to be done about it.

In the cold pink water he wraps his arms around himself and cries bitterly, shaking and heaving until everything stings and aches.

Later he stands by the window in a sweet evening breeze, towel around him, eyes cooled with ice water until they feel normal again and no longer sting when Thor is brought back to him. Coolly he informs him that he will be put into his service like any common household slave until his next appearance in the arena in six days' time.

It's to be a fight until somebody is dead this time, between Thor, The Archer and the one they call The Hulk.

_x_

**Avengers arena – showdown in the next chapter! Meanwhile please feel free to feel very confused about whether or not you like this Loki….he's certainly not worked it out yet!**

**For anyone who's interested my beloved is illustrating this fic at ****enemiesbrotherslovers**** on tumblr!**

**So far there's a Thor and a Loki and they're in the process of doing a nsfw illustration for this chapter! :-)**


	5. Chapter 5

**Wee warning for violence, as always with this story!**

**5.**

To think there was a time when it had seemed to Thor that being forced into the arena was the worst fate that could befall a captive of Rome. He could have cursed his own naivety if he had though he was in any need at all of being any more cursed. There is no indignity greater, he finds, than for a gladiator to be reduced to the rank of a household slave and worse still, a household slave who is still expected to face death in just a handful of days, upon minimal training and days of the grind of menial servitude.

Though it shames him more than the servitude itself, he keeps his head down in an attempt to not further incur Loki's wrath or even attention. Yet, though Loki makes no further attempts to even touch him, Thor can still feel those sharp eyes like daggers, following him, even when Loki is not even there.

He has not forgotten how, through his blurring vision, he saw Loki look down at his blood-stained hands as though shocked, surprised and – was it maybe even scared? Disgusted – and not at Thor. Then later, his own fogged head refocussing and with crudely treated wounds he had seen how brokenly Loki must have been crying and how repeatedly and intently he must have tried to hide it. How could he see as though right inside the creature's soul and why by all the gods did he care? Why, when he was the one violated and abused was he managing to hold himself together whilst Loki looked to be the one falling apart?

On the third day he finds himself sent back, at least for the day, to the training grounds. He realises that even Loki must see that he cannot be thrown back into the arena completely unprepared – if anything only because it would reflect badly on him as an owner. Bad enough that Thor's back is a crackling, detailed road map of red. As he is led away in the burning sun, all he can feel is the burn of it and the tight itchy pull of his skin. He does not see Loki watching him go from the shade of a pillar, with cloudy, anxious eyes, slipping back into the shadows as though he is one of them.

But it is _good _to be back in the training grounds. The familiar smells of blood and sweat, leather and sand. Dust clouds pounding around the feet and water when it is needed. The blissful relief of catching moments away from ever watchful eyes. A nod of greeting from The Dacian that seems today like the warmest token of friendship he has ever received, somehow flooding him with the pleasantest warmth and most ridiculous gratitude. The first free moment between spars finds them sharing the same shade, nodding at one another with the careful casualness that suggests a worryingly real friendship.

Worrying, because friendship is not encouraged or rewarded here.

"Still alive then," The Archer nods, yet he weights it with a real respect that renders his words far from flippant.

"Still alive," Thor nods, though it is hard, nay impossible, to sit down without flinching and without the wince being fleetingly noted by those eyes that miss nothing.

"Need me to shoot him for you?"

Thor smiles grimly –

"Would that you could. But no –" he shakes his head "I will kill him myself when the time comes". He has been swearing it to himself for the past few days and it feels good to say it out loud. Good, yet terribly like a lie.

Hawkeye nods and for a moment - silence. It feels to Thor that a conversation with this one uses only half the words people would normally need, yet it is somehow comforting and right.

"Acid vinegar," Hawkeye says eventually, apropos of apparently nothing, the usual slight awkwardness to his words not dulling his intent, but Thor knows well enough to what he refers. He nods, still remembering the sting;

"They used it –" he does not relish the memory – "T'was worse than all the rest."

"I am no expert," the archer says regretfully – "Natasha –" he always says that name the same way – a prayer to hurt a heart that knows nothing of such emotion – "She was always better with poisons than with cures".

Thor looks at him, perplexed to hear him say this so fondly and the taciturn face appears to half smile, lost in a sweet but temporary dream. It is a silence Thor does not know how to break.

"Honey," comes a deep but gentle voice from the other side of the pillar. Thor looks around but cannot see the speaker and the Dacian is lost in his dream of The Girl Thor can almost see, conjure dup out of his few but perfect words. Fire and snow.

"Honey and crushed oak leaf," the voice comes again – "Garlic powder makes a less stringent disinfectant than acid vinegar and it hurts a whole lot less." Such a soft and melodic voice as though in itself it could heal wounds – "My girl," it explains – "She is trained in the art of medicinal herbs. Applied me so much oak one time it turned the skin green."

There is a sense of great movement behind them as the speaker rises, turning to nod at them and offer an awkward half smile as he walks away. Thor and Hawkeye cannot help but stare at each other a moment in speechless disbelief.

"Betty," The Hulk adds, as though this were the most important detail yet – "Her name is Betty."

Thor feels a sigh, so deep down inside him that it does not come out. The names of these girls stack up like priceless books on the shelf of his mind. Books that contain all of the value in the world to the men that worship them.

_Betty._

_Natasha._

Why then, why in _hell, _does his mind's eye see him adding his own book to that shelf, and why by all the gods does the title of his book read-

_Loki. _

_x_

The one they call _The Hulk _is nearly a legend in Rome now, and like all legends, more have heard of it than have seen him.

They say he was a Roman, of some note even, though nobody can say in what capacity; that his fiancée's father designed and tested weapons and armour for the arena and may or may not have set up his would-be son in law as a criminal to bring him to his present fate. They say he is unstoppable, that once in the arena he _grows, _so great does his strength become, into a barely human fighting machine, perhaps the victim, they whisper – awed but not sympathetic – of a foul experiment in the merging of man and weapon.

Thor has never listened to what the crows say. The chatter of the corvidae is so much babble in his ears. He had contented himself by not daring to think further than that the Gladiator- legend of a man was some mindless beast that between his strength and the Dacian's arrows they could take down without too much remorse.

Now, standing in the sun and the baying of the mob, two days later his heart sinks to remember that gently offered advice. And it _has _helped; the honey has sweetened the pain of the lash to a positively bearable pitch. He remembers how the _beast _whispered the girl's name as tenderly as though he feared his very voice could hurt her memory.

He hates this. He cannot rationalise his need to live, not when he clearly has nowhere near as much to live for as his enforced adversaries with whom, in another time and place, he knows he would have been friends. He does not want to hurt the girls he has never met but has filed in his mind upon pedestals of great respect. But more than this, selfish though it must be, he does not want to die. Nevertheless when Hawkeye enters the arena shortly after him they stubbornly exchange nods and refuse to fight. They refuse until the crowd begins to hiss its displeasure. It occurs to Thor that Loki will be amongst those he is displeasing and this makes him smile in grim satisfaction.

But it cannot last, for when The Hulk is unleashed amongst them moments later he shows no intentions of not fighting and The Dacian has put an arrow to his bow before Thor even sees him move. They have already made a silent agreement to do this together, knowing that arrows can be no more than a distraction to the colossus and he weights the battle-axe in his hand, prepared to take the face to face attack as the archer works better from a distance.

As he expected, the arrows are like flies to The Hulk, who bats them away as though nothing more than faint irritation and even when they hit seem to affect him no more than mosquito bites. Even so, the distraction is enough to get Thor within metres of him without getting killed. The torrent of arrows does not cease but The Hulk is nonetheless aware of Thor's position and Thor is on the verge of making his peace with the gods as a mighty arm swings his way when the "monster" stops, pauses as though about to fall, arrested as they all are by a voice screaming a name they cannot hear. Close to the barrier a girl in the audience is struggling forward as though she means to break her way through entirely into the arena. Her strength in getting so far seems unprecedented, so small and unassuming does she appear. Thor pauses, though The Archer, who cannot hear her, does not for several moments, continuing to fire his arrows in The Hulk's direction. The Hulk clearly does not feel them at all, his eyes wild and stricken by the sight of the girl at the barrier. He moves away from the fight and as he steps towards her seems positively to shrink. For a moment Thor cannot hear above the girl's screaming to realise that Hawkeye is yelling at _him, _yelling to _Strike now damn it _and though he sounds no happier about it than Thor is Thor knows he means to finish this and live for the girl who dances like fire on the tip of every arrow and so – for he will not cleave a man in half in front of his girl, Thor wheels a mighty blow to the back of The Hulk's head with the blunt of the axe, before backing away as the gladiator falls like a building falling, with a crash to reverberate across the entire stadium. At that point the girl breaks through the barrier, hurtling through the sand to fall weeping across the fallen fighter and the coliseum erupts in chaos.

Thor drops his weapon with a dull clunk onto the sand where it lies with a bow and quiver similarly dropped. He is alive and hating it. He cannot tear his eyes away from the motionless Hulk, the soft spoken man whose name he never knew, but who had done him a service in defiance of the knowledge of the this fight to come. For a moment the only movement comes from the girl, and yes he knows her name and remember the way he said it, damn it – she turns her streaking eyes up to him, her hand resting on the fallen Hulk's chest. _He's not dead _she mouths, a bare whisper that The Archer can see and only Thor can hear;

"For all the gods sake –" she whispers – "Don't tell anyone – I can –"

And it's as far as she gets before the trainers arrive on the field, dragging Thor and Hawkeye off one way and Betty the other. As soon as they are back out of the glare of the crowds the trainers turn on them furiously –

"That's the second time running we've seen nothing but chaos from the both of you –" the chief trainer begins, cut off by a man muttering a message in his ear. The Trainer smirks and nods –

"_You're _in luck – _perhaps," _he grins unpleasantly at Thor – "Your master has demanded you be sent to him straight away. Go on then –" he snaps to the guard, "Get him out of here!"

Thor had not thought his heart could have sunk further, but he watches The Dacian stand up straighter to meet whatever is coming his way and cannot help but wish he was being allowed the same chance. Loki demands his immediate presence, does he?

Thor groans inwardly. Of course he does.

_x_

**Many thanks to **_**LittleSpider **_**for helping me out heaps with character work on Clint and Bruce who I love but do not know as well as I do Thor and Loki. Also for the heaps of assistance offered regarding Clint/ Natasha and Bruce/ Betty whom I ship gently but dearly.**

**Sorry for the lack of Loki in this chapter, will make it up hugely in the next one. Heh. Heheheheh. You're gonna like the next one folks, tis heavily smut-tastic! :-)**


	6. Chapter 6

**Warnings for rape/ dub-con. Seriously and graphically. **

**6.**

"Is he your lover?" Loki snaps, angry on more levels than he can count. Angry because he did not want it to go this way; he had wanted to remain as cool and collected as ever – not snarling out a damned personal question at his slave the instant Thor is brought to his room, thrown onto his knees, before him, unchained, still fresh and filthy from the arena. Angry that he cares. Angry above all that the rumour could be true.

Thor, for his part, is no less angry; though his anger lies at the injustice of his entire current existence- for having to harm men he respects and then be brought to heel before this petulant child whom he does not.

"What?" he frowns, genuinely at a loss to what Loki could be referring to.

Loki looks down at him and in that uncalculatedly puzzled face, suspects he reads his answer. He nods to the guards to leave and continues in his course regardless.

"The Dacian. They say you are lovers and that this is why you will not kill him."

Gladiators, it seems, are the last to hear what people say about them. It is so preposterous that, unwise as it is, he cannot help but laugh. Loki slaps him. Thor does not care. Loki's lips curl at Thor's defiance –

"What then?" he spits – "What stops you from fighting him?" he feels himself shudder sickeningly inwardly, not realising that Thor can see it in him, frightened by his own jealousy and what he might have done if it had been true –

_-rip out those perfect eyes and throw the bastard to the wolves –_

Sometimes in the fierceness of his anger he can see himself do these things. See it so vividly the blood flies into his face. He looks back down at Thor, and it is strange that those furious eyes can steady him. Somehow he knows that the slave would not lie, to him and it surprises him how much this stills the rage – _mine, _he purrs to himself, soothingly – _all mine. _

Then Thor answers him and his hackles rise all over again –

"Something you would not understand," he looks Loki straight in the eye – "Respect."

The slaves' blatant disdain, how base Loki looks in his eyes – it all bites at him painfully – all the more because he cannot argue that it is not warranted. _Why gods? _He thinks. _Why does this barbarian touch a part of me I was content to think was long dead? _He wrenches Thor's head back by the hair, twisting viciously.

"You are _mine, _slave –"

Thor, the strain of battle still hanging upon him, has no patience for this; he can feel himself close to breaking point and barely trying anymore to hold it back.

"I have a name," he snaps.

"I do not care," Loki counters promptly, pleasantly, lying most melodically – "I would not even know."

And there it is. The breaking point. Thor is sick of it. Sick of the attitude. Sick of being treated worse than an animal, as nothing. Sick of Rome, sick of the arena, of kneeling, of fighting, of _not _fighting. Above all, he is sick to death of Loki.

If Loki did not think to have kept him in chains it is surely not Thor's fault if he kills him. He breaks free easily, rising from his knees with a roar and grabbing Loki by the throat before he has time to even react. The rational part of his brain that still remains yells at him in horror – _stop this, stop! What are you doing – this is your master! _He squashes the wretched voice down as easily as he throws Loki on his back across the bed. For a moment, with his hands wrapped around that soft pale throat he really thinks he might do it. In the end he never does work out what it is that makes him let go; if it is the plea in Loki's eyes, the silent strange fire that burns there and the sorrow as it starts to dull. Or perhaps the way his throat feels in his hands – so small and helpless, bones fragile as though he were wringing the life from a baby bird. Maybe it is just that, as Loki struggles and kicks beneath him, he feels that wild heart beat as though it were in his own chest and realises that his cock is hard as hell for that perfect writhing little body.

He lets go, disgusted with himself, both for being in this position at all and then for letting go. But the feeling of pure _wanting _does not go away, even as he wonders exactly what it is he wants. It has been so long since he felt _any _genuine arousal at all, and to feel it now, so terribly and in such circumstances just feels like the worst kind of joke.

Loki coughs and splutters and tries desperately and in vain to push Thor away from him. Thor responds by pinning him down by the wrists so violently Loki cries out in fear that the bones will break.

"How _dare _you?" he hisses, gasping for breath, chest heaving – "I could have you killed for this –"

"Then by all means, scream for your guards –" Thor challenges – "You'd be dead before they set one foot in here."

Loki eyes Thor's hands as they slide back to his throat in a gentle, pinching threat.

"You wouldn't kill me –"

Thor smirks to hear the uncertainty in Loki's voice but his heart sinks to know that it is true.

"Do you know what happens to a slave that would kill his own master?" Loki continues, somewhat recklessly. Thor spits in his face in response, grinning at Loki's violently appalled expression of utter disgust.

"You are no master of mine," he snarls – "It would be worth all and any punishment to see you dead."

But he will not do it, no – and he knows it – any more than Loki would really have him killed. He can see too that for all the wariness in his eyes Loki is not actually truly afraid of him and this, for the first time, affords him something like respect. Also Loki is _beautiful _– it is not the first time he has noticed this – almost ethereally so – strong for all his slightness and gods, that pale perfect skin that he is suddenly all too desperate to sully, mark, consume. His coarse, filthy hands scratch and stain that skin as he rips at Loki's tunic, the fine fabric tearing easily in his fingers. Loki is simply exquisite; alabaster perfection and just as smooth. Thor feels like a monster to tear away at this sweetness, but is lost to a pure animal instinct, dragging his hands to feast on that flesh, his nails to score bloody tracks and break the flawless skin. He had hardly known quite how loud the primal drumbeat in his head was– until now that, gorging himself upon Loki, it begins to cease; though his lust rises with every second, every touch.

Loki whimpers in automatic objection against this onslaught, although the knowledge of all that Thor could do to him and the feel of the gladiator's large rough hands upon him makes his body sing as he has never known it to sing. There are a hundred reasons why he should not want this, not allow it, but his skin thrills beneath those fingers and he cannot stop his cock from hardening. Nevertheless he fights half – heartedly, moaning as Thor ruts against him, afraid enough of that gigantic cock to finally remember to object –

"You would not – you cannot –"

Normally Thor would have to agree; this is not like him, he is not cruel, he would never before have imagined forcing himself upon someone like this. But – but his moral compass flails in Loki's presence – it has been too long and he has suffered too much to not give in now – and it is hard to really cast himself as villain when Loki is whimpering so beautifully, _wanting _this so obviously for all his lies.

"I would," he growls, divesting himself of his meagre attire to further slide his aching, starving monster of a cock over Loki's hip and thigh – "And shall. Scream if you will, I will not stop you, but do not doubt I shall be inside you when your guards come running."

For a moment he thinks Loki _will _scream. For a moment so does Loki. When he does not, Thor spits out a "Ha!" of gloating victory, manhandling Loki savagely until he is on his knees, his face thrown forward into the pillow, sobbing in humiliation and anticipation as much as for wanting this painfully.

"Gods –" Loki whimpers, though both of them know he is at least half acting and that the question is rhetorical and for his own pleasure in hearing the reply – "What do want of me?"

"I want to hurt you –" Thor shoves Loki's face back down, hand on the back of his neck – "To defile you as you have me. I want to make you _mine –_" he grins and spits out the last word with infinite sarcasm – "_Master."_

He rips his nails savagely down Loki's back, drawing blood with one swipe before he sees the network of faint silvery scars he has just scratched through. He pauses, frowning – the scars are old but they are _hundreds _– and everywhere. Loki stiffens beneath his troubled gaze –

"Don't you dare –" he whispers, and to make it clear what he is referring to – "Don't you fucking dare stop now." Because _sympathy _now – that would be worse than the most savage of rapes and Thor realises this in relief, because he is not sure how capable he would really be of stopping right now, and he scratches into Loki again fiercely until Loki cries, wailing in pain and catharsis until he feels Thor's cock nudge up against his tight opening. It has been so long he is unsure he can take it, but Loki's sureties are irrelevant to Thor right now when his cock throbs painfully with pure need. It has been forever, at least by choice and he has never had something quite so exquisite. He pushes a finger into Loki as he spits into his other hand and slicks up his cock. He is already dripping with sweat from the arena and while it will have to suffice, is still kinder after all than Loki was to him.

He cannot wait. He takes his cock in hand, pushing it in mercilessly, holding Loki still by the hip as he attempts to squirm away. Loki shrieks and sobs, clawing his bed sheets and streaming tears for it is _agony, _Thor is too big, breaking into him, filling him until he feels he will tear apart. He only just does not. Loki only just stops himself screaming for him to stop. Thor could not have stopped; not now, he carries on until he is buried in Loki completely, head spinning in delicious bliss, cock on fire from that sweet tightness, almost too much, knowing how much pain Loki must be in and pausing, ball deep inside him, for them to both get used to the feeling. He starts to move almost gently at first while Loki still cries, though now at the same time wriggles himself back onto Thor's cock as Thor pulls back. The wriggling arouses and incenses Thor and he slams in, then pulls almost out, slamming brutally into Loki again and again. Loki screams. He screams over and over in pain and in simple enjoyment of the screaming until the burn segues into a pleasure that still burns but makes his cock, as Thor reaches to stroke it, excruciatingly hard. Thor makes a growl of smug satisfaction to feel Loki's hardness and Loki snarls "Damn you," while thrusting into his hand.

"Shut up," Thor snarls back, slapping his cock and dragging his hand back to Loki's hip as Loki howls in the intense pleasure – pain of the slap, burying his face in the pillow to not swallow his own tears. Thor rams into him furiously in a violent frenzy, all conscious thought long gone.

"Hate – you," Loki chokes out, so much emotion in his chest he has to express it somehow. Thor's lip curls as he struggles to believe how he can hate someone so much yet take such pleasure in fucking them –

"Feeling's – mutual," he grunts back, thrusting in viciously, feeling himself close, his balls tightening, shoving in finally punishingly deeply, to come inside Loki roaring and shaking , everything beneath and across his skin ringing in pleasure.

As Thor floods him with so much hot seed Loki throws his head back to scream, body arching as he follows, soaking the sheets beneath him. He screams until he can no longer scream, coming from deeper in himself than he had thought possible, so much energy shooting out of him as though from every fingertip and pore. He can feel something dark and broken deep inside him coming apart, something that has been poisoning him for years begin to crack and dissipate.

He falls bonelessly into the bed, Thor falling over him, holding him by the wrists, still not even faintly trusting him to move freely. _What now? _He thinks, listening to Loki's sobs cease and his breathing calm – what happens now he has got this sick lust out of his system? His cock twitches and, looking at the gorgeous arch of Loki's back and shoulder, at the scratched skin filthy from his own hands and Loki's blood – he realises that no, he has not got it out of his system at all. In fact he has only fuelled the fire.

He cannot believe his own cock, but he answers it all the same; he pulls Loki's now pliant form back onto his knees and fucks him again, this time taking his time to luxuriate in every sensation until he can hold out no longer.

Afterwards he still will not meet Loki's eye, nor Loki his, but pulls him against him, curling around him, heart racing, frightened beyond measure at how well they fit together. He does not want to say anything, not really, but the intimacy is too strange –

"It must be time you kicked me out –" he taunts, hot in Loki's ear, contemplates adding another mocking _master _but settle on something much more dangerous – "_Loki." _

Loki tenses but says nothing for a moment and then staunchly ignores the familiarity.

"You will stay," he says eventually, his tone utterly neutral.

"Is that an order?"

"Stay," Loki says again, twisting in Thor's great arms to look at him as the words come out so much needier than he had meant them to – "Please, Thor?"

Thor grins, mostly in a smirk but with a jolt of unprecedented contentment as a look of panic flits across Loki's face as he realises what he has done.

"I knew you knew my name," Thor smiles, and in return does not object at being sent to sleep that night at the foot of Loki's bed. At any rate it is more comfortable than the slaves quarters.

_x_

**So I never really wanted to write Thorki non – con. I don't like it, I don't like people viewing Loki as the poor wee victim and Thor as the bad guy - it's a huge pet hate of mine. However this fic took shape in my head the way it's being written and I gotta stay true to that. I firmly believe that Loki could have screamed if he really wanted to and Thor, given everything that's happened to him isn't a villain here. It's a complex dynamic and I hope that's the way it comes across rather than that anyone's a victim here 'cause I wasn't going for that at all. This is a weird relationship in a fantasy/ historical au and cannot be compared to everyday modern relationships (unless like, you actually are a gladiator and your partner has bought you!). I just needed to make that clear 'cause I have strong views both on consent and characterising Thor and Loki in this regard. I really don't want to upset anyone. I am aware there is no such thing as "Just a story". **

**That all said I hope people liked this and there will be more to follow! :-) **


	7. Chapter 7

**Still gonna put warnings in for dub/ con though I reckon it's a lot less dub now than it was!**

**7.**

Loki wakes the next morning feeling filthy and confused, aching and rather wonderful – no less so for the sweet singing that still lingers in his skin. He orders Thor back to his household duties dismissively, not this time with any cruelty, but because he simply has too much right now to process.

For his part Thor returns to his duties, struggling to believe he has got away with it so easily. He still does not quite believe it, and spends the day on edge, just waiting for the call that will see him killed for his actions. At the same time – though he keeps his head down and keeps silent – he is in a turmoil of desperate, raging confliction. He wants to hate Loki as much as ever, _does _hate him as much as ever and yet – he goes round and round in circles and groans inwardly whenever he gets back to this point – and yet nothing in his life ever felt so intensely good as the feeling of fucking Loki. His hands still shake when he thinks of it and he thinks of it all day; he can still feel him, taste him, hear his cries. As the day wears on he is still touching him in his mind, skin aching and tight at the memory. And then Loki's eyes and that small broken voice calling to his heart by name; it is not just Thor's skin that tightens and it makes him wretchedly afraid.

Before being expected to actually serve in Loki's presence again, he is taken away to be cleaned up – belatedly – from his fight in the arena. Though he submits as always, as he must, he feels stupidly bereft at having the scent of Loki washed from his skin. He can smell it so clearly he fees everyone else must too. Surely too they will have heard the screams and snarls from Loki's chambers and thus know every detail.

Well, it is the least of his worries.

Loki takes up his favourite spot in the shade that afternoon, having spent half the morning lingering in a fetid bed – smiling and stretching, twisting in the sheets beneath an avalanche of memory, details of the night before flashing out at him in a deluge of sensation to prick every pore in his skin. Writhing in delight at the memories, until he has worked himself into a wretched state of confusion. He vents a little by throwing his ruined clothes and sheets at a slave girl, screeching at her to burn everything and make the bed immaculate before he returns from his bath-which takes up the other half of the morning. In truth he has never felt so delicious in a state of filthiness.

He lounges in the afternoon, the perfect picture of composure and serenity, his thoughts, his heart – everything – a teeming and chaotic mess.

He lies on his side, toying with a lemon, breathing in the sweet and the sharp scents of the garden and rabidly chewing over and over in his mind upon _what the hell is wrong with him? _The gladiator that was supposed to be a toy, something to play with and to ignore, has not only invaded his body but his every waking thought. He has broken something inside of Loki that has been, for years, both horrible to him and vital to his survival. A shield of knives that he has thrust out at the world, now flying cuttingly through his insides. His thoughts are black and confused; hatred for Rome, love for his own wealth, home, power, nausea at the resurfacing memories he has kept down all this time. Above all, a feeling towards the gladiator (Thor, his brain supplies, not helping him at this time) – that he convinces himself he cannot identify. Certainly he dares not speak its name. He has never felt lonely in his solitude before, but as Thor stands with the slaves serving supper that evening Loki suddenly hurts with the bizarre desire to _talk _with him, not just at him. Thor resolutely does not meet his eye, but Loki knows that he can feel his gaze, wondering if he can also feel too much of the emotion behind it. He feels curiously cold in the hall alone, as the slaves file out upon his dismissive order.

"Odinson," he calls out as Thor files out with them, because yes he read the bill of sale thoroughly and he knows full well what his name is along with all the details of his capture in the wars and how he has been used by Rome ever since. Thor stops, arrested not only by the cool command but by the note of tremulous uncertainty in Loki's voice.

"My chambers," Loki orders – "Ten minutes".

Thor makes a barely perceptible nod, leaving in a silence that betrays nothing. Loki stares pensively down at the stretch of mosaic, like a smashed rainbow across the marble floor. He has no idea what he is doing and it scares him half to death, but after a moment's near catatonic staring he clenches his fist and gets up.

When he reaches his bedroom Thor is already there. Loki is not certain if he even expected him to be or not. He is not entirely supplicating but still kneels on the fur beside the bed, where he slept last night, hands clasped behind him, looking up sharp and alert when Loki enters.

"Get up," Loki sighs, gesticulating accordingly, both weary and imperious – "Given the circumstances, the posture does appear a little ludicrous don't you think?"

Thor smirks, halfway amused –

"What circumstances would those be?"

"You know damn well," Loki snaps. Thor rises slowly. Loki shudders, biting his lip – Thor in the golden – red flicker of the lamplight is glorious to behold; oiled muscle and shining gold. Loki is prepared to try any last shot at redressing the balance of power that now swings precariously between them.

"I hope you are aware of the predicament in which you now find yourself," he begins.

"To which predicament do you refer?" Thor counters stubbornly. Loki refuses to show any signs of being riled by this and continues coolly –

"You are guilty of the remorseless rape and abuse of your master and owner –"

"Remorseless?" Thor almost laughs, turning his head away in a direct display of insubordination – "You want me to say sorry?"

"No!" Loki snaps, too quickly to stop himself, grabbing Thor by the back of the neck, fingers tangling in his hair, to force his face back to his. He realises what he is going to say a split second before he says it and his grip instantly softens – "I – want you to do it again".

In the brief but devastating silence he looks down, perplexed and ashamed, but no less sure that it really is what he wants. Thor grins. He is less surprised to hear it than Loki is to hear himself say it and he cannot say it is not exactly what he has been hoping for, almost expecting.

"You're disgusting," he taunts softly, close and low in Loki's ear. Loki lets go, pushing him in irritation.

"Oh. Yes. So disgusting you could not get enough last night."

"It had been a long while since I got a better offer," Thor shrugs, surprised to find that he deeply enjoys antagonising Loki.

"I. Did. Not. Offer!" Loki hisses acidly.

"You did now," Thor retorts, and this time he is the one grabbing Loki by the back of the neck, pulling him towards him as Loki emits a soft unchecked groan, squirming at his suddenly racing pulse. Thor sees it all and those wide eyes, silvery in this light – and again those eyes trouble him. They gaze at him in something Loki would, he suspects, be horrified to hear looks a lot like trust; though he could not have said if it was trust that Thor would not hurt him or trust that he would. There is so much to read in those eyes – so much hate, trust, wariness, fear – it is a book he could read until he is lost in it. He cannot. Instead he does something he never planned, nor dared in all of last night's madness – he kisses Loki.

Loki fights it, and Thor is glad of it – for the excuse to be cruel and for the unspeakable arousal Loki's struggles ignite in him. He kisses him in a snarl, teeth and fury and hate and though Loki twists and strains he kisses back awkwardly. So awkwardly that a strange but certain truth dawns upon Thor – that Loki has _never been kissed. _It makes him pause, if not in action, at least in thought, to wonder at what kind of a past life Loki is hiding and hiding well. He can barely help but change his approach until he is no longer attacking with teeth and tongue but kissing those soft lips gently, his grip on Loki's neck softening, relaxing into a feather light caress, curling round to a cheek and jaw he suspects have never been stroked. It makes him sad, in a dull uncomfortable ache – and yet there is something in Loki – though he does not know what it is – to deeply inspire such tenderness.

Loki feels the change. He cannot believe those calloused, sword wielding hands can be so gentle, like a butterfly lighting on the skin, the feeling all the sweeter for knowing that those hands could at any moment turn and crush the life out of him so easily. He pushes himself instinctively into that touch that feels so wonderful and strange, this kiss of a kind he had long ago ceased to believe in. it feels so lovely his heart begins to shake violently in terror.

"No –" he splutters, breaking the kiss, trying to twist out of Thor's arms – "Stop – no – what are you doing?"

Thor strokes his cheek with one thumb, all the more gently for Loki's angry frightened squirming.

"I am not the animal you think I am," he murmurs close to Loki's lips. Loki catches himself nearly whining for the warm sensations running through him and cannot take it – he spits in Thor's face, following it with a slap that barely touches him but breaks the moment effectively enough.

"Yes," he argues, but cannot hide from his voice how desperately he thinks he wants his insistence to be true – "You are – a mean brute creature incapable of feeling –"

Thor slaps him back then and his hit is harder. Loki gasps, then grins almost in the same breath. This is more how he wants it – as Thor pushes him violently onto the bed –

"If that is what you wish then," he growls, giving Loki what he wants, at least for now – "I can be all that and more -" once again Loki's clothes rip easily in his hands, once again he is shaking with lust as he presses down on him, that tender throat in one hand as he discards his own attire impatiently. _Dear gods_, Loki is a wildfire charging through his blood, possessing him as he could not have imagined. His skin, blossoming into bruises he has placed there himself, making Thor's hands tremble even as he pushes Loki down hard to deepen the bruises and make Loki cry out in the relief of pain. Loki twists and arches at the press of Thor's erection, punishing against his, trying to squirm around onto his knees, making of himself a silent offering. Thor holds him remorselessly in place, shoving his legs back by the ankles and yanking his head back to kiss the pale throat as he pushes his cock under Loki's –

"No –" he growls, "You will look at me when I fuck you –" Loki stubbornly closes his eyes, the pretence that he hates this no longer even faintly believable. Thor slaps him again –

"You will look at me –" he repeats – "What I _rape _you –" he uses the word mockingly, for even so he can feel Loki's hips jerk to hear it, "You will know that you are mine –"

"No –" Loki growls weakly.

"_Mine –_" Thor slaps him again, delighting in the sight of those red marks across the pale perfect face- "To use as I will, you pathetic worm –"

Loki's eyes flutter and he shames himself to hear his own whisper.

"Oh gods please –"

Thor smirks;

"You like that? To hear what a worthless filthy thing you are?" Loki whimpers and his hips will not still, he twitches wildly beneath each new insult. Thor takes up the oil he had already noticed by the bed and works his cock slowly and intently as he continues;

"Disgusting, foul and craven cur," he snarls, sweet nothings in Loki's ears; "Traitorous snake – you deserve this –" and he thrusts savagely back into him as though he had never been gone. It feels wonderful, even better than before for having known how good this would feel. He holds Loki by the hair, forcing him to meet his eye as he rams into him, spitting into his face when he cries.

Looking down at that beautiful contorted face Thor can feel something happening to him that is almost unbearable. It will not go away however hard he pounds that divine body, crushing against Loki as if he could take him into himself, then leaning in to kiss him, Loki's cock trapped, hard and throbbing between them.

The kiss, as before, segues from vicious into tender all too rapidly and his hands slide all over Loki almost – he temporarily manages to laugh the idea off – lovingly. Loki feels it too and tries to jerk his head away.

"I am no slave," Thor whispers into his ear, breaking the illusion of himself that he knows Loki needed to console himself with – "I have a name, a home, a birth right. I have feelings you would never –"

"Shut up," Loki whispers frantically – "Shut up shut up shut up!"

Thor does not, leaning back to stroke Loki's cock sublimely, a half smile on his lips, his eyes so dark they are barely blue any more.

"My beautiful master –"

Loki's eyes stream and he bites into Thor's shoulder hard, to stop whatever damnable thing he would have said. Thor's hand clenches around Loki's cock and he pushes deep into him.

"Thor – please –" Loki whispers, so quiet even he can barely hear it and Thor hears only because Loki is right in his ear – "Tell me you want me."

Loki feels like he will die if he does not hear it.

"I do not," Thor lies frantically to save himself – "I hate you."

Loki shakes his head, shaking with desperate sobs, even though his cock aches upon the edge of release in Thor's hand.

"I hate and despise you –" Thor continues – "You are nothing but a curse to me and –"

"Please –" Loki begs again, so choked he can barely get it out. Thor closes his eyes in despair, he cannot do this any longer, to Loki or to himself;

"- and I want you," he groans – "By all the gods I want you Loki, every inch of you." Loki gives a near scream of relief, coming howling into Thor's hand before the words are even all out. Thor buries himself in Loki, his face in his neck; he wonders what the hell will come of this-but not for long, for he is coming into Loki in a flood that shakes through him, carrying him in a surge that seems endless until he crashes shuddering onto him.

Loki uncurls his fingers slowly and painfully from their clutching grip around Thor's neck. He pushes at Thor who is crushing him with his mighty weight and it is like trying to move a boulder. Thor moves back slowly, making dangerous eye contact that could ignite the air. He dips his head and Loki puts a firm hand on his chest before Thor can kiss him again;

"I hate you," he says as he said last night, but it sounds wavering, as though it is more to reassure himself than anything else.

"I loathe you," Thor counters promptly – and it sounds no better.

"You may go." It is a test and they both know it; Loki feels sick for fear that Thor will obey him.

"I am not done here yet."

Loki gives a satisfied groan as Thor resumes his explorations of his body, sighing in bliss when he takes him again and later again. When there is no single drop of energy left in either of them Loki orders Thor to his place at the foot of the bed.

"I could kill you with one hand," Thor reminds him congenially.

"_I _could kill _you _with one finger," Loki counters just as amiably, turning his thumb in the sign for a gladiator's death – "Now go".

Thor goes, and every night after that for more than a week as Loki demands his presence earlier and earlier each night until Thor is waiting even before he can ask.

And on not one night does either of them forget to remind the other how much they hate them.

_x_

**Just a quick note that I've altered chapter 1 a bit and changed the year to AD 31 for reasons that will become apparent in later chapters! :-) ….cause there will be more actual plot, I do apologise for all the pwp – sure you're all hating it ;-)**

**Also I realise I haven't thanked/ acknowledged my beloved beta on this story - Zedrobber to whom I am deeply indebted for the much needed betaing! – so yeah, doing that! :-)**


	8. Chapter 8

**8.**

"_Natasha" The Archer had said, and with that one word broken open every pre-conceived but unexamined notion Thor had ever had about love. How it worked. What it was. He thought he had been able to imagine it, but he was wrong. That one strange word; three little syllables that dashed at this man's heart like another man's _I love you. _And perhaps, after all, to him it meant the same._

"_What do you leave behind?" had been the question, on a quiet afternoon in a forgotten corner of the training grounds. They leant against the baked stone wall, perspiring in the sun. Yes, he supposed it was an intensely personal question but when you are thrown together to fight to the death, it is perhaps possible to forego the niceties. He had started to forget what there had been before this; what real ties he had ever had. He had started to forget and sought answer in the memories of another._

_He did not get an answer; what he got broke all his assurances, showing him only that next to this he never had any real ties. Nothing. _

"_What is it –" he expands the question in the face of the Dacian's silence, those sharp – steel eyes watching his face intently to catch his words – "That makes you keep going?"_

_The Dacian nodded slowly as though contemplating, though Thor could see that the answer was there before the question was fully uttered. As though she balanced always on the tip of the mind and it would have been a sacrilege to spill her name too quickly from the tongue. _

"_Natasha," he said slowly, not wanting to let go too soon to the best thing he has tasted in forever. _

_At first Thor does no know to what the word pertains. It is of no language he has even faintly encountered. But it is easy to deduce that the word is a name. Or more than that; even Thor knows a true prayer when he hears one and this is a true one certainly. The Archer's eyes cloud over as though he can see her crystallised there within the word. As though he can always see her, balancing like a dancer on the tip of every arrow. It is no wonder to Thor now that he never misses. _

_For a few moments Thor thinks that this is all. He gives The Dacian the respectful space of a near reverent silence that he feels the answer deserves and then frowns, concerned that Hawkeye will say nothing else. Indeed he does not until Thor probes for further clarification –_

"_Your wife?"_

_He nodded, leaning back against the wall, as though to see her better._

"_Tell me about her. What was she like?"_

_Again a long silence before he spoke and when he did his words were precise, not a one wasted, and slow - as one striving to take care to be understandable. After all he could not hear his own words. He has not heard a thing since almost before he can remember. But that is another tale and one he has no wish to tell anyone. Slowly he replied;_

"_Like everything you could ever imagine," he shook his head, with half a smile – "And like nothing you ever could. She fights the battles I no longer can. Perhaps now she fights to avenge me. But – she fights."_

"_The women do that where you come from?"_

_The Dacian shrugged –_

"_She does," he replied, as though this is all that could ever matter – "By blade, by fist, by poison and by word. I have never bested her yet."_

_No wonder, Thor thinks, that her country lies still beyond the reach of Rome – when it holds women such as this. But it is the man's voice and the words he does not say that still strike at Thor as no attack upon his person has managed yet. He could see it in the now half closed eyes, almost hear the man's dream -_

– she is perfection riding an icy storm to annihilate all enemies. She is the blood on the snow of her country. She is that snow, that country. She is my aim and she keeps it true. She is all women. All this and more. She is Natasha.

_He did not say, in all of this "She is mine," as another man might and Thor did not need to ask to hear him say "She is her own"._

"_I hope -" Thor said and wished there were something, _anything _better that he could have said – "I hope you get back to her"._

_The archer inclined his head in a gentle silent bow –_

"_I thank you for your hope."_

_He had clasped Thor's hand before returning to the field to spar and Thor was left, is still left now, feeling more broken than he could have thought possible from so brief a conversation. That this man with his eloquent silences and awkward words could say so little and yet still conjure up the apparition of a girl to fight circles around them all._

Natasha.

_He thought it then and it haunts him still – I will never say anybody's name like that- the way he said hers._

__x__

And this now, Thor thinks, lying sleeplessly, like a dog at the foot of his master's bed – this is not love. His body aches – everything is soft and tense, singing and worked half to death by what Loki wants and by the strength of his own desire. It is lust, it is poison, it is a foul unwholesome co-dependence, it may even be obsession- but it cannot be love. He has survived this past week or more on the false strength of these repeated assertions and is determined to carry on this way.

This is the first night he has lain like this awake, he has always been too exhausted before- he is too exhausted now, but there is too much chattering in his brain tonight. There is all of this, all of this sweltering spinning confusion that can be summed up in that one strange word _Loki _– and where _does _that name come from? He wonders this too. He understands better than he ought so much of what is inside of Loki, how he works, what he wants – but he does not really have any clue as to who he is.

He has also heard news that alarms him, not for Rome but for the people he wishes he could help without knowing how he ever could. A rumour he has heard from a fellow slave that a small tribe of Sarmatians are threatening an attack on Rome in the Emperor's absence. It is not the threat to Rome that concerns him, even if Rome were to be burned to the ground, he is not sure he could find it in himself to care. Neither does he suspect this tiny uprising stands the faintest chance; there are more serious whispers against Rome at this time – no it is the leader of this rebel tribe that has attracted his attention, it left a big enough imprint on him before to remember it now – _Natasha Romanov. _

He cannot imagine for a moment it is not the same person, and he cannot stop wondering if his erstwhile associate has heard the rumour. He suspects not, for gladiators are the last to hear anything. He cannot mourn the fact that he has no further dates in the arena at this time and that consequently Loki is keeping him even from training. No he cannot mourn the reduction in threats to his own life, but it frustrates him beyond measure that there is no way of getting to Hawkeye with this news. The threat, such as it is, to Rome be damned, he simply wishes there was something he could do to help in those two becoming reunited.

He lies awake in the cool dark of this room, troubling his way through these concerns in this place that is sweeter smelling and cleaner than any he has slept in, not just since arriving in Rome. Outside the cicadas chirp like the chattering of his own overheated thoughts and the breeze through the window is like cool water at midday, sluicing the skin.

His thoughts and the cool night are cut open all of a sudden by a whimpering sound like an animal in pain; a strange, almost unearthly sound that makes Thor sit up tense and alert. He looks around, at first thinking the noise comes from outside, perhaps from a dog or tortured animal of some kind. Then he can hear it closer, an excruciating whine that lifts the hairs at the back of his neck and above and behind him in the bed Loki is twisting in the sheets as though fighting them and they in turn trying to hold him down. The whimpers turn into sobs and even from the floor Thor can feel him shaking, crying out in his sleep incoherently at first and then forming words –

"I'm sorry –" he murmurs at first in a soft somnolent babble – "I'm sorry, I'm sorry Leah - I didn't – not to kill – what she said – NO!" he screams it suddenly as though addressing someone else – "Please no, please – she told me to – please don't –" the words are a messy stream, choked, sobbed and screamed and it stings at Thor's heart more than it should. He cannot think about what is _right_ here, what makes sense or is sensible but gets up slowly, gently easing himself behind Loki, untangling him from the sheets that are distressing him and curling an arm around him to stroke his shoulder. At first it seems to make Loki panic and he squirms frantically trying to get away, hissing and snarling like a trapped cat, fingers curved into claws, trying to scratch Thor away. Instead of holding tighter Thor loosens his grip, keeping the gentlest hold he can to make Loki still, kissing him on the head with a gentleness he did not know he possessed and murmuring to him in the hope that his voice will get through to him that he is not whoever he thinks he is –

"It's alright, hush, it's alright –" he murmurs as though to a child, as though Loki was something he merely cherished and took care of – "Hush Loki hush, you're alright, you're safe -" Loki's eyelids flutter rapidly and when he wakes and turns his face to Thor it is the face of a small boy, scared and confused. He frowns, his fingers curling out of their claws and feeling Thor's face in the dark. He smiles then, happy and consoled and makes a soft humming sound as he settles back down, pressing his back into Thor's chest and curling the whole of one small, slender hand around one of Thor's fingers. Within moments he is asleep again and sleeping silently.

Curled around Loki in the dark, Thor looks down at him, now unable to sleep out of an instinctive need to stay awake and watch over him and also unable to reconcile this Loki with all the other faces of Loki he has seen. To think that this is the same Loki who just this afternoon called Thor over to as he lazed beneath a tree. Who, with no words, had cut a sharp slow line across his upper arm with a paper knife and then smiled, gentle as a madman as he squeezed fresh lemon juice from the fruit in his hand into the cut he had made, watching Thor's face with faraway interest to see how he would react. How Thor had gritted his teeth and made no sound in spite of the stinging screeching pain, and how Loki had smiled; dipping his head to lick blood and lemon juice from Thor's skin, kissing him and then dismissing him as though all this were the work of a normal moment. He thinks of this and Loki's other insanities, of his rages and his passions and his cool, lying and calculated calm. He looks down at him now, like a kitten in his arms and wonders how so many people can reside in one body, how Loki even survives like this. He cannot help but feel strangely awed, almost impressed. Cannot believe how much he genuinely wants to help.

_Loki – _he thinks and is terrified to hear the sound of that name in his brain. _Dear gods help me, _he thinks –

_Natasha. _

_x_

That morning Thor wakes before Loki in spite of how long it took before he ever eventually fell asleep. He looks at Loki in the morning sunlight, his face against the pillow in the soft golden light. His heart aches for he knows now that, strange though it is and though it is nothing like he could have imagined – this is some curious kind of love. He strokes an errant strand of hair from Loki's eyes tenderly and Loki wakes up and smiles at Thor in the first light of that morning almost as though he is his equal. Thor kicks himself to make himself remember otherwise and starts to back away, to open the curtains as he does every morning before fetching Loki's drink.

"Where are you going?" Loki inquires in a rather petulant whine.

"To my duties -" he replies and adds, because Loki seems to need reminding too – "_Master_".

He vows to himself as he speaks that he will not tell Loki all he has realised, what he feels, cannot ever tell him. But he beginning to trust less and less in the vows he makes himself.

"Leave it –" Loki waves an arm, grasping for Thor sleepily – "Let the slaves do it."

Both he and Thor realise at once what he has said, the distinction he has just unwittingly made and Thor settles back into bed around Loki smiling goldenly , while Loki quickly diverts his eyes.

_x_

**Again thanks to **_**LittleSpider **_**and **_**Zedrobber **_**for their assistance with aspects of this chapter. I also have finally got a complete outline for where this is going – so for those of you patiently waiting for Loki's backstory – it **_**is **_**coming – just not quite yet….I have some actual **_**plot **_**to do a bit first!**

**I also have to say a huge thank you (if I haven't already!) for all your lovely reviews on this fic – it is most encouraging! :-)**


	9. Chapter 9

**9.**

Sunshine and stone, cool white and the dark leaves of the fig trees. The gentle chink of metal, musical on the air. Loki smiles to himself, sat in the courtyard in the mid-afternoon, his book lying open but page-down on the low stone table, discarded, for it takes his eyes away from Thor, sat on the floor near him shining the weapons he has not used in so long now. Loki smiles yes, but his eyes are troubled and Thor cannot stop looking up at him in concern for Loki looks like he might at any minute start to speak, perhaps in an amazing outpouring of words and even truths. But he does not.

On the one hand Loki feels happy. Perhaps happier than he has ever felt. On the other, he is terrified. Terrified that someone has seen him the way he knows Thor saw him last night, terrified too of how close he is to telling Thor _everything. _But then he remembers how Thor held him and kissed him, demanding nothing, not needing any explanation just watching over him until he fell asleep. It is the thing he has always dreamt of having in his most secret heart and it makes him feel both radiant and vulnerable to finally have it. He dares not imagine it could mean Thor really cares, and he berates himself that he really does want Thor to care, wants him to love him even. He cannot imagine how he could dare want this, given everything he has done, given that Thor is his _slave _and he, hardly the kindest of masters. But he does want it, he watches Thor whenever he can do it without meeting his eye, trying to see if he can detect any signs in that face of what the gladiator may be feeling. Eventually the wondering frustrates him every time and he fears he would not know it even if he saw it.

Then too, it scares him more than he can say to want someone to love him so much. After all it is not like _he _feels such things for anyone. And yet. Yet he does not want Thor out of his sight and his presence makes him feel more himself than his own company has ever allowed him. It feels, after weeks of owning him as a slave that Thor might now be, even if just a little bit – really _his. _

"Thor," he says, ponderingly, into the silence that has balanced all afternoon between comfortable, heated and awkward. Thor looks up, a question in his eyes, and suddenly Loki realises he has no idea what he was going to say. His normally ready tongue is floundering in quicksand –

"I woke you last night," he says clumsily. It was certainly and utterly, nowhere near the list of things he had meant to say.

"I was not asleep." Thor says calmly.

"I did not wake you on any other night?" It is the only way he can say what Thor understands him instantly to be saying – _I wake like that every night, screaming and afraid._

"On those nights I _was _asleep." Loki nods, grateful enough that Thor has not made him feel any more awkward than he already does to sigh deeply and continue –

"You know of course that I am not Roman -" he begins, there is a weight between them, the memory of Thor stating this in the face of Loki's first violation. Thor knows that to say anything in answer to this would not be wise and his silence begs Loki to continue more effectively than words.

"I was –" Loki begins, at which point a slave enters and, before he can get angry enough to instantly order her death, announces that the emperor's nephew is here to see him. Loki curses violently, but one does not refuse to see young Gaius when he comes calling, not if one values their life. In the second he gets, he closes his eyes in pain. He opens them to look at Thor with a pleading look that says _I am sorry _more clearly than he would ever say it out loud. Sorry, that he cannot give what he had been about to give, sorry for himself as well as for Thor, for being denied the opportunity to discard it all, more than he has ever managed internally, in the outflow of words. He blinks the expression back quickly, grinning when Gaius struts in with a grin that even reaches his eyes, jumping to his feet in the most flawlessly feigned exuberance. If one values their life they are also happy when the emperor's nephew comes calling.

For the first time Thor finds himself impressed, rather than simply disgusted, with Loki's incredible ability to feign and to conceal. He suspects it may be how he has survived Rome all this time. He watches him carefully, curious but aware of the need to not be seen watching, and finds himself almost marvelling at the act that Loki plays. Everyone in Rome knows Gaius's reputation and if they are clever know to stay away or to be his friend whatever the cost. _Caligula _they call him, if not to his face, for even though the childish nickname has stuck that does not mean he wishes to hear it. He wonders how Loki ever acquired friends amongst the Claudians, if it was out of intent or necessity.

Loki treads the tightrope of political association as though he simply dances along it. To hear him chatter, listen, laugh and sigh you would think only that he was talking casually with a very good friend. For the first time Thor finds himself awed by an ability he knows he could never possess with a lifetime's study. It is only towards the end, as Gaius gets up to leave that Thor sees Loki almost slip, and he almost forgets to breathe for fear – both for Loki and for himself.

"I must say Hermes your new acquisition really is a beautiful creature," Gaius comments languidly, looking straight over at Thor for the first time and looking at him quite plainly as though he is an animal at the market; "I don't suppose you'd let me borrow him just for a day or two?"

Thor resolutely displays none of his panic in his face but inside his heart is hammering; however casual the request, you do not refuse it when it comes from such a source and he knows there is no way Loki would endanger himself. For a split second he sees his own panic dart fractionally into Loki's eyes as well, quick enough that Gaius misses it completely. Thor could not even really blame Loki for acquiescing, however awful it would be, but to his amazement Loki laughs –

"Absolutely not," he grins, as though joking – "You should see the mess I've made of him. I couldn't possibly lend you something so broken." Loki knows well enough that Gaius can go one of two ways, as unpredictable as the Roman weather; he can kill a man for denying him the slightest thing, even in jest – or laugh it off just as easily, even respect them for daring to say no to him. For a terrible second Loki only pretends even to breathe as he waits for a reply. For himself he cannot believe he is doing this, risking such a thing _just for a slave _he reminds himself, though the words sound hollow in his own head. His heart races as much in surprise at the violent wash of his own possessive jealousy as for fear that Gaius will turn on him like a rattlesnake. To his life-saving relief Gaius laughs.

"Shame," he shrugs – "Oh well then, you won't mind me borrowing that Greek of yours – you know the one I had my eye on last time."

"Oh of course not –" Loki breathes, for real this time – "In fact – have her, she's all yours."

When Gaius leaves, high spirited with his prize, Loki sits down quickly before he falls down. Thor can see him shaking like a leaf and silently pours him a wine. Loki drains it and exhales hard.

"Thank you," he says quietly, placing the glass back down and stroking Thor's head very lightly, as though he were a treasured pet, with fingers that still tremble, temporarily forgetting to be mean, forgetting even that he does not need to say _thank you _to a slave.

"The girl –" Thor says. Relieved as he is he still cannot believe how little Loki can care about any of his other slaves.

"I know, I know –" Loki sighs, then shakes his head quickly as though shaking off any part of him that could care – "Oh well," he shrugs. Thor watches, frowning, as he races through what perhaps should have been hours worth of emotion in seconds until he can see any thought for the girl really has been discarded.

"You see," Loki sighs, shaking his head slowly, and in the next moment Thor has forgotten her almost as quickly – "This is why I could never give you freedom". He sounds so close to genuinely regretful that Thor stares at him in astonishment. It had never even begun to cross his mind that Loki would have thought about it, even in passing. He is bewildered to find himself almost disappointed by the idea that Loki would be prepared to let him go, and he discards that confusing thought as quickly as he has it. Instead he takes advantage of Loki's apparently momentary weakness to hazard something he would not normally have dared or expected would get him anywhere –

"There is something you could do for me instead," he begins, heart in his ears, still unsure enough of Loki to wonder if even voicing this could get him punished. Certainly just a few weeks ago it would have got him close to killed and with his craftiness in taking this advantage and with Loki's tendency more and more to relent to him he wonders if they are not becoming more and more like one another than either would like to admit.

Loki squints at him a moment, gives a short not – quite laugh and in an attempt at his normal manner returns –

"_Why _in all the gods would I do something for you?" Thor does not reply, dropping eye contact and pretending to forget about it in silence just long enough for Loki to grow impatient and eventually sigh –

"Well – what was it?"

"It is too much. It does not matter." Thor cannot quite tell if he is really relenting, because he knows he is right – it _is _too much – or if he is still attempting to manipulate Loki.

"Tell me!" Loki snaps.

Thor takes a deep breath and plunges in –

"Can you buy another slave and give _him_ his freedom?"

Loki stares at him astonished, both that his slave would dare to ask such a thing, that he would consider it and most of all unable to understand how someone could make so unselfish a request.

"Why would you –" he begins, but there are too many questions and he tries to ask them all at once – "Why would I - What slave?"

It occurs to Thor that as soon as he voices, it Loki is probably going to scream at the absolute least but he has gone too far in the request to back out now –

"The gladiator – Hawkeye."

He guessed right. Loki's flares into rage, silent at first, storm clouds of jealousy, anger and outrage massing in his face before he explodes –

"Oh this is – I don't believe – are you out of your mind? How dare you?" he paces as he rants, breathless and fighting for words – "How do you dare ask for _his _freedom least of all expect that from me when everyone knows what they say about the two of you?" Loki stops just in front of Thor and taking the back of his neck in a cruel pinch – "You belong to _me _slave, never forget it –" Thor bites on his lip to not react to Loki's vicious fingers, bordering a fine line between subservience and turning the tables around as usual as he shoots out a warning hand to rest gently at Loki's throat, just a reminder of what he could do. His glare softens as he feels the pulse flutter there beneath the skin and it is an effort to stop his fingers from stroking. He cannot stop his traitorous eyes from speaking, _yes, yes I really do _but out loud all he says, and calmly is, –

"It is not for me," Loki's grip relents a little for there is ever that unarguable honesty in Thor's voice – "It's for his wife."

Loki lets go of him altogether, and frowns –

"Start explaining. Start explaining _fast."_

Thor explains; how he suspects the connection between the leader of the tribe currently amassed not far out of Rome and The Gladiator. How he believes that The Dacian's freedom is all she really seeks and that once given she will retreat, removing the threat posed to the city.

"So – what?" Loki interrupts at this juncture – "You want to do this _for Rome?"_

"The hell with Rome," Thor retorts – "I suspect _you _have no more love for it than I do."

"You're damn right I don't," Loki mutters quietly, though not before Thor has caught something blazing and venomous snap in his eyes – "But then why –"

"The empire feeds itself on new territories every day," Thor interrupts – "It grows fat on suffering in its gluttonous scramble for expansion – how many more lives need be ruined, left in pieces in its wake? These people from the east – they are brave but their numbers are small. An attack on Rome, however impassioned, will only destroy them. I would see no-one, least of all those deserving of respect reduced to a war prize of the Roman army."

In the heat of Thor's intent he does not notice the trembling that ripples over Loki's shoulders before squirming back down into his gut, does not guess how the back of his neck prickles at those words.

"Would you not?" He murmurs, almost inaudibly – "Friendship aside - why would you care?" He waves the question away before Thor has time to start answering it. It is new to him - or at any rate so old he has forgotten – that there are good people in the world. He is not sure what to do with the reminder, nor with the uneasy affinity he suddenly feels with this woman he has not met. He does not want to think about it further just now, or really hear any further proof of Thor's goodness and strength of character, something he now, for the first time in longer than he can recall, feels deficient in lacking.

"Well," he says, finally, taking a deep breath – "I will consider. Leave me."

Loki's eyes are distant and faraway and Thor does not challenge him further but makes himself absent, concluding to himself that Loki will _not _consider but that at least he tried and has not been killed for it.

_x_

It is not until a few hours later, some time after sunset, that Loki summons Thor again. These evening summonings have of course become a regular occurrence over the past few weeks but never before to the stables on the edge of Loki's property. And at first he thinks it must be a mistake because Loki does not appear to be here. He sees the horses before he sees Loki, two of them being led out and then Loki, all in black, blending into the shadows as ever as though he is a part of them.

"Here –" Loki says quietly, handing him a mass of dark material – "I suspect inconspicuous is not your forte so wear these and keep quiet." He hands the Thor the reins of one horse as he speaks. Thor suspects he should probably keep quiet and just follow, but that has never been his style and as he struggles into the cloak he hisses back –

"Where are we going?"

"You _can _ride can't you?" Loki checks condescendingly, refusing to answer immediately. Thor does not deign to reply, answering Loki with a roll of the eyes as he swings up onto his mount. Loki nods as he follows suit, riding out a little ahead of Thor, turning his head to add –

"Follow me. There is a lady we must speak to about a gladiator."

_x_

**Yes yes, Loki was waiting for Thor in the stables – y'all keep your horse jokes to yourselves now d'you hear? :-P**

**And yes, I am teasing you mercilessly with Loki's backstory….it will out….in good time! First I have to get Loki to negotiate with Natasha which is scaring the crap out of me 'cause I've never written her before and she….kinda scares the crap out of me! Wish me luck!**


	10. Chapter 10

**10.**

Loki knows routes out of Rome that nobody else would ever even know existed; pathways left unguarded, corners and edges of the city that nobody sees or ever looks at. It was one of the first things he made sure to teach himself when his position in Rome began to look anything like secure – to know every available escape route.

Before now he has never used any of them, never allowed himself to have cause to - just taken comfort in knowing that he has them. He has kept quiet, kept himself and his position strong, hidden every little thing he thought or felt that might have betrayed him as anything other than the perfect son of Rome he pretends to be. He has kissed Rome's arse, rather than kick it as he would rather have wished. Even though, if he is successful now it will be at advantage to Rome, it _feels _like the opposite, when he knows that to consort in secret with its enemies would see him regarded as a traitor whatever the intentions. Not to mention the affinity he feels for this tribe that would defy Rome in spite of all the odds against them. It takes strength, guts – to risk as much as they could lose in this as well he knows. Gods, he knows. Knows too well what could become of their intrepid, and by all accounts dangerous, leader if she were to fall into Rome's hands. He does not know her, does not trust her, but he cannot argue with his instinct telling him he does not want this to happen.

He has thought about this ever since dismissing Thor this afternoon. He cannot regret that – or the knowledge that Thor would have assumed him to be immediately disregarding his request – in fact he is glad of it. The last thing he wants – or has ever wanted – is to look like he is playing the hero or even performing an act of kindness. Amongst the many things troubling him at first had been the idea of doing this _for Thor. _He had tried both not to consult his own feelings in this matter and then to consult them quickly and efficiently before putting them away as so much unwanted baggage. Neither attempt had worked well.

Why had he even opened himself up to this? He owed Thor nothing, had no regard for him beyond that towards a not – quite – faithful pet. What then was happening to him? It was bad enough when he had imagined himself merely in the grip of some twisted perversion, some bewildering possibly even obsessive desire. Then the desire had mutated, until there was little enough he did not want Thor to do to him. But it was still safe, if complicated lust, even if it had not burnt out as the mere distraction he had hoped it would be, indeed had done nothing but get stronger. But it was still understandable, perhaps, in the face of the gladiator's strength and beauty.

But then – somehow a terrible terrifying need had crept in. not just for him to have Thor with him always but for Thor to _care _for some reason about him. More and more he caught himself talking to the slave like an equal. More and more he seemed to be catching glimpses of his own self in those eyes and in his company and _that _perhaps was what scared him most of all.

And now he had somehow allowed himself to become invested in the fates of his _slave's _acquaintances, if not with The Dacian then the more he had found out about the lady in his subtle search to get news of her encampment's location, the more he had come to appreciate and even share her stand against Rome. If he was still doing this for Thor it was now at second hand, and yet somehow this no longer made it any simpler.

In the dark and shimmer of starlight and night he glances surreptitiously aside at Thor as they ride, slipping through the trees outside the city like they themselves are lengthening shadows. His face in the moonlight reveals nothing, and his perfection in Loki's eyes stings them. He wonders for the thousandth time what is happening to him – better that than suspect that he might know.

In the gathering shadow Thor too glances sideways and is sure he catches the slightest kingfisher movement as Loki looks away. Loki is beautiful beyond measure in this light; highlighted in silver as though the moon was made only to illuminate him. Thor aches like a gods-blasted boy to touch that skin, feeling like silver and stardust might brush off onto his fingertips if he did. He curses his addled brain and orders it to focus on the task at hand.

Except that he is not entirely certain he knows what that task is, and his thoughts stray again before all too easily before he has fully formulated hi suspicion. _Loki. _If only he had any idea who he really was, though not knowing has done nothing to keep his untameable heart at bay. Not even his knowledge that Loki is sure to break it, or even him, without even batting an eyelid could do that. Loki is as much a mystery to him as ever, despite the long week now of heated nights and the crackling air between them in the day. Oh yes, he can see into Loki as through an exquisite piece of glass, can read his wants and the feelings he is perhaps himself unaware of – but he has no idea where he comes from or what he is – yet somehow he thinks, perhaps, that does not provide the answer to _who he is after all _– perhaps this at least he does know and know better than Loki does himself. And yes, somewhere along the way he has lost something he never meant to lose and the violent loathing he had first harboured had slithered into lust and then something like love; like a snake headed straight for him it had turned fluidly around until consuming its own tail.

Beneath a gathering of trees Loki reigns in the horses more gently than Thor would have imagined. But Loki does so little other than surprise him it is almost, conversely, to be expected. He drops from his horse so lightly the sound can barely be heard over the cicada's song from the trees. Thor drops down beside him a little less quietly, and he is barely off his horse before there is a cold flash of metal at his throat. He hears Loki gasp very slightly and turns just enough to see that he is in the same position as he is – with a dagger at his throat from one of the four watchmen they never saw or even heard in the shadows. The only relief – if it can be such – is that they are clearly not Roman.

_Well, _Loki thinks, as they are led at knife point towards the camp, _at least they're leading us where we wanted to go. _They are led straight through the camp and pushed rudely through the front of the largest tent. They're black, Loki notices, all of the tents are black like somebody has died. Loki almost wants to ask who but instead has pronounced, almost cheerily before he can stop himself –

"Well. This isn't exactly the arrival we had in mind."

He hears one of their captors mutter something in a strange language even he has never heard and then their leader turns around, from looking over a table spread with maps and stratagem, a sword already out in either hand.

"Who are you and what are you doing skulking around my camp?" she snaps.

"We're here to help," Thor says quickly, knowing instantly who she is and very quickly piecing together the meaning of their night – time venture. The Lady does not relax for a second or look any less suspicious of them for this reply.

"Who are you?" she repeats.

"I am Loki, last of the Cimbri of Jutland," Loki states, tossing his head a little, stating himself more proudly than he has in decades, perhaps because for the first time in all those years this comes closest to an honest reply. Thor shoots him the briefest of looks – for this is news to him. He wonders how true it is and looks away again quickly knowing now is not the time.

"The Cimbri are long dead – vanquished," Natasha replies coolly, not phased by the lie, which is after all only half a lie, merely pointing out that she cannot be duped in anything – "I have you as Aduatuci at best. Your people once stood in relation to Rome much as mine do now, am I right? – I'm right." She adds without waiting for a reply, reading it clearly in Loki's shifting eyes – "Besides I was talking to _him,"_ she indicated Thor coolly with the tip of a sword. Loki looks affronted but does not stop Thor from replying -

"I am Thor Odinson of the Upper Rhine. I know your husband".

For the first time the green eyes flicker though neither Thor nor Loki can tell with what. Natasha lowers one sword and dismisses the guards. Her lip thins, visibly, as though it is suddenly a greater effort to hold back everything she can, and walks a slow swerve around the table, placing it between herself and the strangers.

"And they all – all this time called me The Widow –" she says ponderously and with just the slightest sneer, not quite losing eye contact though she never looks away – "And I told them it was not so – I _told _them!" she looks straight at Thor again sharply –

"Tell me."

Thor glances to Loki quickly and Loki nods very slightly.

"He is a gladiator in the Coliseum, he fares well enough but he is a slave of Rome –"

"I can free him –" Loki interjects – "And return him to you, if it will prevent your peoples attack on Rome –"

"You are neither of you Roman, yet you ride from Rome –" Natasha states, as though listing evidence – "You –" she nods towards Thor – "Appear as _his _slave though you control him even as he gives you your permission to speak and _you _she turns to Loki – "Appear as a Roman nobleman though you are or _were _no less a slave than he is and used all the worse by Rome than he, I suspect. Why then should either of you care for Rome or for its fate?"

Loki stares at her steadily, feeling icy and shivering inside at her cool and flawless deduction. She never even once appeared to really look them over and yet she has their measure down to the last drop.

"Oh your accent by the way is perfect," she adds, almost smirking. Loki's eyes narrow –

"One could say the same for yours," he counters, just as unpleasantly. Natasha smiles, eyeing Loki back as narrowly as he regards her.

"Lady, ourselves, and our intentions are our own –" he continues.

"No," she interrupts, holding up a hand to stop him and coming back round to stand nearer –

"Your selves you may keep, but I suspect your intentions at this time are mine to know."

Thor watches them through the candle light; two blazing forces trying to outstare one another. Loki's face, that has somehow grown almost dear to him, is a closed perfect mask rendered alarming in the flickering light, almost daemonic and as for Natasha – Natasha is so intent, so dangerous you could blink and forget she was beautiful if her beauty were not so hypnotic. Pale and strong as a statue, clad in armour, her presence makes her seem so much taller than she is, looming out of the shadow and the reddish light like the first tongue of a forest fire. When she finally blinks and Loki grins it is hard to tell if he has really won or if she has simply chosen to back down this time.

"So what proposal do you bring me?" she asks finally.

"I will buy back your husband –" She frowns –

"You can do that so easily? – but of course –" she corrects herself, half smiling as she glances at Thor – "You've done it before."

Loki refuses to let himself be distracted by her un-nerving ability to piece together apparently his entire life. He suspects his position in Rome would never have lasted five minutes, let alone as long as it has, with someone like her around.

" – and you will come to my house, unaccompanied and in disguise, to take him out of Rome. I do not intend to use my own route twice."

"Neither do I intend to put myself at such a risk. What assurances do you give of my safety in _your _city?"

"Lady, I suspect you are yourself your own assurance." Loki grins. Natasha smiles back almost nicely, though Loki is not fooled for a minute, nor by the way in which her shoulders relax and everything in her stance drops to signify her trust in Loki's proposition.

"Well then" she smiles – "We have a deal. And where I come from we do not shake on a deal but drink on it. Gentlemen please –"

She pulls the stopper out of a decanter on the table and fills two glasses with the strange pale liquid, shimmering golden in the light. She raises hers and hands Loki the other, they clink in a false display of trust and Natasha drinks. Loki raises his glass and then in the last moment raises his eyebrows at her –_did you really think I'd fall for that? – _and hands his glass to Thor with a nod at Thor's querying, slightly worried expression, even though he catches the alarm that flares very briefly in Natasha's eyes and tries very hard not to let his concern show. If it was in front of anyone else it would not have shown, but the lady's eyes are in their way as sharp as her husbands' and she misses nothing; still she does not say anything, when Thor, better than to back down before either of them swallows the drink, eyes upon Loki the entire time. She sees the look he gives Loki and reads it well – _if this kills me, I do it for you – _and sees too Loki's look back that says _I'm sorry I'm so sorry but I swear I will not let you die. _She can see Loki grimace as though he is the one to taste the poison she herself has long since built up an immunity to and Thor begin to look ill within moments. When Loki drops his mask long enough to even look at her with that frantic concern and Thor staggers with a look of pain, she cracks enough to pour a second glass from a different decanter and hand it to Loki with a sigh –

"Here –" she says – "Your slave looks ill. I suspect he may need another drink."

Loki looks at her angry and distrustful –

"I hope to the gods you're –" he begins, then brushes it away as irrelevant in the face of helping Thor quickly and helps him to the drink though his hands are almost as shaky as Thor's. Thor has no sooner got it down than he is violently sick in a corner of the tent while Loki bends over him, unable to stop himself stroking Thor's hair even though he knows Natasha is watching. When he has heard enough of Thor's laboured but increasingly steadier breathing to know that he is going to be alright he turns back.

"_What_ was that?" he spits, angrily.

"A test," Natasha shrugs – "You passed".

"Exactly how does one fail? By dying? How would that have helped you?"

"I would not have let either of you die," she snorts, as though she cannot believe Loki is so bothered by this – "I wanted to see what you would do. If I thought I could trust you. I will. I am ….sorry I hurt your –" she pauses, not used to saying _sorry _much more than Loki is and searches for the right word, " – _slave,_" she decides, though it is not the right word to her in the slightest. Loki cocks his head to the side a little –

"Belladonna?"

"I knew you'd know."

"Thor – are you - alright?"

Thor gets to his feet slowly, looking not wholly happy but nodding both to himself and to Loki. Natasha watches the relief wash over Loki's face, and frowns a little –

"I will come," she says.

"Two days from now – this address." Loki writes it down on the corner of one of her maps –

"Now if you would please see us back to our horses. I'd like to say it's been a pleasure but - well -" Loki shrugs – "Next time maybe – hold the belladonna? It's not the most gracious hosting I've ever seen."

Natasha smiles almost apologetically and shouts for two of her guards to come back. She talks to them briefly and Loki correctly judges her to be telling them to return them to their horses.

"Gentlemen," she nods, turning back to them – "I suspect it _may _have been a pleasure." She watches them turn away before sighing and adding – "And – boys?"

Loki raises an eyebrow at her in silent query for her to continue –

"I don't know what it is between the two of you –" she shakes her head – "But work it out, okay?"

_x_

**Quick history lesson if anyone was wondering – Jutland is roughly the area that is now Denmark, it was at one time populated by The Cimbri who fought the Roman Republic in the last century BC but were essentially wiped out before then. Loki wasn't wholly lying about being his heritage though as the Aduatuci who fought Rome in the first century AD were descended from The Cimbri. The Aduatuci were also defeated by the Rome, but some remained split into small groups throughout Belgium and Upper Gaul for some time after that. This will also be relevant in later chapters, hence this very sketchy history!**

**However before anyone points it out, the Samartian tribes never to my knowledge fought against Rome, but I've written this tribe as so small it probably wouldn't have been noticed by history anyway.**

**Meanwhile I'm sorry this chapter was so long in coming, I struggle with plot and wasn't sure of Natasha. I hope nobody came across as too much of a douchebag in this, and normal probably explicit service will be resumed shortly!**


	11. Chapter 11

**11.**

They ride back to Rome as they rode out of it, in thoughtful silence. They ride all the more carefully than before, as Loki can see that Thor is swaying slightly in his seat. Loki cannot help but feel more relief than he would like that Thor is only sick and that, from what he can tell, there are no more traces of the poison left in his system. He is chilled by his own terror at what he would have done if Thor had died – not the part where he killed the Samartian witch in the most painful way he could conjure up – but afterwards. He can practically see his own heart, just newly learning how to beat again in real feeling, fluttering out of what seems like a life – long hiatus; dashed to pieces on the ground where his beloved's body lies.

_Beloved – _his inner brain hisses in a spiteful echo that rocks him so hard he almost sways upon his horse with the sound of his petrified internal screaming.

He is troubled enough still when they are safely back home and the horses returned to their stalls that when Thor turns to look at him, his eyes warm and curious and he starts to say –

"You –"

Loki explodes –

"I did _nothing!" _he half screams, half hisses – "Not for you. Not for anyone! I did what _I _wanted! Nothing else! Not ever!"

Despite his lurching nausea Thor manages to smirk condescendingly –

"Convince yourself, did you?" he says quietly. Loki sneers in fury – he did not.

"Shut up Thor!" he snarls – "Shut the fuck up! Get to my chamber – now!"

"That's a no then?" Thor cannot help himself, even though Loki screeches an unintelligible sound and slaps him, somewhat ineffectually as Thor turns to obey the command, his chuckling heart sinking a little at the thought of having to perform in this state.

Loki has no intention of making him do anything – not tonight, though he has no intention of letting Thor know that quite so easily, and especially not after Thor has baited him so insubordinately. He is glad to know there is still enough of him left that perceives it as insubordination to feel he still has not quite lost himself completely. No, there was just so much in him – he does not fully know what – screaming to be released in a shriek for any reason.

He stands in the courtyard for a moment, feeling like an idiot, since the only place he also meant to go was his chamber. But he waits until he knows he has given Thor enough of a start that they will not have to walk that way together and follows, cursing himself that he has come to this - using his unparalleled brain for such trivial concerns.

When he gets there and closes the door Thor is already undressing, looking up at him in weary expectation when he gets in.

"Oh don't give me that face –" Loki groans, and then his next words surprise Thor utterly. "Please, lie down before you fall down, for the love of the gods get some sleep, you look terrible –"

"Maybe if you had not tried to kill me –" Thor begins half-heartedly.

"That wasn't me!" Loki protests, genuinely hurt "Actually that was the person _you _wanted to help, and do you think I don't know the antidote for belladonna? Really?"

"So –" Thor frowns, because depressing as it is he has been accepting it as true – "You would not be indifferent if I died then?"

Loki feels his traitorous heart make another of those strange jolts in his chest and finds himself, not for the first time, wishing he was someone else – someone who could just answer and answer truthfully.

"Shut up Thor," he says again, tiredly – "Shut up and go to bed."

"Your bed?"

"No the emperor's bed on Capri! Yes, my bed, you moron!"

Thor gets in, gratefully, though unable to shake how strange it feels being ordered simply to _sleep _in a bed shared with Loki. He is almost glad for how much his head spill spins and his body aches for preventing him from thinking about it further.

"Dear gods –" Loki mutters as he gets in behind Thor, half to him and half to himself. "As if I would, when I just saw you heave your guts out – I may be disgusting –" certainly he has got off on Thor telling him so enough times by now – "But I'm not that disgusting. Good night, Thor."

But Thor is already asleep.

Loki on the other hand, is not even tired. He feels the strangeness of having Thor here, on a footing that seems quite obviously more equal than before, even more than Thor felt it. Besides which it has never been this way before, him awake and Thor asleep – he could sleep for the empire normally, and has always fallen asleep with Thor curled around him or woken to find him already up. He lies awake in the not quite darkness, the first weak hints of morning lightening the edges of the window, staring at the back of Thor's head as he sleeps. It feels painfully strange, feelings dancing through him like he was the one to have swallowed the poison. He has swallowed some kind of poison, that much is certain, to feel so strange. Looking at Thor makes him feel at once frighteningly breakable, as though everything he has held his existence together with has been removed and, though the pieces of himself are tentatively holding their position, one jolt could shatter him apart like a badly made plate. But at the same time, a part of him he is sickened to acknowledge wants this, wants to feel this strange new vulnerability. A vulnerability that after everything he has tried to forget should feel disgusting to him. It is a neediness, he recognises, a need for Thor that is not purely possessive but as basic and honest as an infant's need for a parent. He should hate this, he _does _hate this – but he also feels warmth in it that is golden and tingling and unlike anything he has ever felt.

As the first fingers of sunlight creep across the bed, they stroke light across Thor's face and into his hair and Loki chases those lights with the gentlest strokes of his fingertips, as though, rather than touching this powerful gladiator he is attempting to nurse some tiny fragile baby animal. Everywhere the creeping sunlight caresses Loki follows with his fingers –_no, light you cannot have him, he is mine – _his fingers shake and the tingling flows all the way down his arms and beyond, until yes, he knows it reaches his heart. He has never touched anything so gently, never seen anything as quite so shockingly precious and his eyes prick and he presses his nose into Thor's shoulder, nuzzling in so gently, in so much disbelief that this person who is so beautiful inside as well as out, is even any way his. It shames him even as he longs for it, pressing himself softly against Thor's back, both appalled, delighted and unsurprised by how well they seem to fit together. Terrifying, this feeling that he could change, could be himself if he can find it, with this person beside him, terrifying but not nearly as unwelcome when he looks straight at it as he initially feared.

When he feels Loki's breathing change and his body grow heavy in sleep Thor dares to smile to himself. It is fascinating, he thinks, what you learn from pretending to be asleep.

_x_

Neither of them wake the next day until the morning is almost through and when Thor wakes it is with Loki gently rutting against him, insistent and uncontrollable. He rolls over to let Loki take him, slowly and sleepily but more tenderly than Loki would ever have previously allowed himself and afterwards Loki wriggles in close to kiss him, silently and fiercely. Both are well aware that Loki has never initiated a kiss before and when it grows deeper and tremulously gentle it is at Loki's lead. When they break away, still tingling, Thor wisely says nothing and Loki is surprised to find himself half wishing otherwise, feeling a little like there is something hanging between them that _should _be said.

It is much to Thor's surprise then that when they do finally make it out of bed Loki sends him to the training grounds for the day and tells him nothing of his own intentions or the reason why, although it does not go un-noticed by Thor when he arrives at the grounds that the Gladiator Hawkeye is conspicuously absent.

Loki, for his part, goes downstairs to be greeted by a message from a servant that there is a lady waiting to see him in the rear courtyard. He is not surprised and wonders how long he has kept her waiting; he intentionally does not hurry as he heads outside, the better for her to have no advantage over him immediately he arrives. When he does he is momentarily startled to see what looks like a Roman lady, albeit a Roman working Lady standing beneath the fig tree in the shade. For a curious moment he feels almost as though women could be preferred over men after all, she is at least as lovely by daylight and in a dress as by candle light in armour. The dress is fluttering and pink and really entirely should not suit her and yet, with her hair twisted and tumbling, turning almost gold in the sunlight – she looks like a painting. Her beauty startles him but briefly enough, although it is never brief enough for her to look straight through him –

"Forgive me –" he covers up quickly in the face of her slightly curving smile – "For a moment I forgot you'd be disguised as a woman."

"Oh it's not a disguise," she returns just as quickly – "Curiously enough, I could give you proof to the contrary."

"No please – that won't be necessary"

"I said I could. I didn't say I would. You'll have to pardon me but – I'm really not your type."

"I wonder then – whose type you are, lady?"

"If you've been to the arena lately I imagine you'll know. Meanwhile you've been terribly remiss in not offering me a drink, don't you think?"

Loki smirks as he beckons a servant over with the wine –

"No less remiss than you were in your – um - _offer_ of a drink."

She concedes this with another of those dashing smiles. _Oh, _Loki thinks – _but she is good! _

"I was admiring your trees," she says, rather bizarrely Loki thinks momentarily – "You know they say the lady Livia poisoned her husband the Emperor by smearing the poison on the figs still growing on the tree. Where I come from – we don't have such trees, but the story always fascinated me."

Loki looks at her sideways, suspiciously as they sit down and she sips her wine without a trace of fear. She _knows _it's safe and _damn, _Loki thinks – _she's better than me._

"Tell me – where you come from, is that a threat or small talk?"

She laughs, and whether it is real or not it is a simply charming sound –

"Forgive me. In my line of work they are often the same thing."

It occurs to Loki that he has underestimated this lady, perhaps as he has never underestimated anyone. It occurs to him that in the right time and place they could even be friends. He does not say as much, would not dare lose her respect in such a way but he does cordially apologise for the disguise that seemed the best reason to stand questioning had anyone noticed a strange lady going into his house. She laughs again –

"Trust me, your apology is unnecessary, there would be no shame in it even if the profession were more than just disguise. It seems to me your Roman whores dress better than some of our great ladies. Now much as I'd love to stay and chat -"

"Yes –" Loki rises again – "I must ask you to stay here whilst I go to the arena. But I must say we should talk sometime."

"Shouldn't we." She concurs raising an eyebrow. As he heads out Loki wonders if he should not have swallowed his stubbornness and kept Thor behind to defend her rather than leave a lady on her own. He has no sooner thought it than almost laughs out loud – as though she needed any defending.

_x_

Loki groans inwardly to think that the Trainers must be starting to think he has the most insatiable kink for gladiators. To his relief however, The Archer's worth has fallen enormously in recent weeks; his tendency to kill people as mercifully and bloodlessly as possible has not gone down well in the arena; neither has he proven killable himself which has led to a sort of dull stalemate in which the crowd has found new favourites. Luckily, Loki has no interest in The Man of Iron and haggling for the Dacian proves easier than he had expected even in spite of what he knows they will be saying about him behind his back.

The ride back with the gladiator proves one of the most awkward hours Loki has ever experienced. He had expected to be besieged with questions as to his intentions but receives none. Instead Hawkeye simply watches him, un-unnervingly as though he can read all of Loki's intentions in his face and can read enough to not be worried.

As if this was not bad enough, what Loki does not see upon arriving back could have made it all so much worse he would have been tempted to forgo this entire venture. Just as he is heading around to the back courtyard with The Dacian, Thor arrives back a little early from the training grounds, just in time to see everything Loki had sent him away purely that he might miss. Indeed, throwing caution aside he follows them round at a safe enough distance to see everything without Loki spotting him. He watches Loki go inside through the back, rather, Thor suspects, than have to be awkwardly present for the touching reunion. What happens next is more unexpected even than Thor even imagined, as Natasha's face breaks into a look of joy that runs deeper than any smile and though Thor cannot hear them from behind his pillar he sees her lips work around a name he never heard. She rises instantly but then her feet seem to fail her and it is Hawkeye who runs to her and all of a sudden she looks her size as he takes hold of her as though she is a leaf that might blow away on the next wind and as she speaks he puts his fingers to her throat to feel her words without hearing or even having to watch the lips she next presses to his forehead as he drops to his knees at her feet and Thor cannot quite tell from this distance but he thinks the Archer may be crying and he looks away, ashamed to be watching.

When Loki comes back out a few minutes later so silently that they do not initially see him, he stands there excruciatingly awkwardly, feeling himself a terrible blot on a beautiful scene. Somehow he had expected this to go – differently – stoically, he supposes, as being the only way he had ever seen either of them conduct their affairs. He feels torn between looking away and making himself scarce again entirely – but then reminds himself that either of those would be just as strange when this is _his _house.

Finally Natasha straightens up, looks around as though remembering herself and turns to Loki, although her hand never lessens its tight grasp upon Hawkeye's.

"We're more grateful than we can say –" she says, and Loki is gratified to see that for once _she _is the slightly awkward one – "To you and to Thor, wherever he is –"

"He's – behind that pillar," Clint gestures awkwardly – "Really? You didn't know?"

She glares at him in what Loki can only imagine to be the common infuriated gaze of the deeply fond –

"Of _course _I knew, I was _trying _to be subtle!"

"Thor!" Loki yells, not quite sure whether to be furious at Thor or annoyed at himself for thinking he could have done this without him knowing – "Come here!"

Thor comes out, not sure what he is feeling more strongly – cringing nervousness at being caught, the ridiculous of suspecting that between the three of them he would not have been seen and happiness for the reunited couple. Loki glares at him furiously though he is not entirely sure of how much his heart is in it and Natasha leans in to say to him confidingly –

"My advice? Don't be mad. Be what you know you should be and - gods I sound like a damned oracle and just for that really, I mean it, kiss and make up."

Clint turns to her, slightly smiling –

"Are you a matchmaker now?"

"I have many talents." She smiles winningly – "Here –" she hands Thor a list of what look like immensely complicated instructions – "If you ever need us. This is how you find us. It's complicated. Remember those then destroy that?"

Thor nods, looking concernedly at Loki who to his relief does not look like he has any plans to haul him out and flog him this time, is in fact sat at the outside table scribbling over the papers in front of him.

"Now we'd love to stay but I have an army poised to rush into Rome that I had best disband –"

"Here –" Loki sighs, thrusting the papers and a spare set of clothes into Clint's hands – "Your freedom," he nods – "Now do remember – you're a Roman sanitation worker – that means you clean the sewers –" well he figured he had to do something, even if it was only childishly mean, to make up for the very large kindness he would hate to admit he had just performed – "And you're a whore – at least until you get out of Rome –"

"And you?" Natasha retorts, not expecting an answer – "What are either of you I wonder?"

In the wake of their goodbyes Thor and Loki look at each other, as awkward as children, both of their thoughts alike, at least for this one moment as they wonder _what indeed?_

_x_

**Okay that was far too much plot for me – gonna probably mostly write porn in the next chapter now! :-)**


	12. Chapter 12

**This chapter has porns in – enjoy! **

**12.**

They look at each other, suddenly awkward as children in the spring of a first crush. It seems to Thor as though everything has gone eerily, dreamily quiet around them; even the leaves no longer whisper in the trees. The only sound is the rushing in his ears that transports him high above all this, up into that blue sky with the wind around him, looking down on himself in this garden, in this fading twilight, in this moment at this time. It seems there is something to be said that can no longer be kept silent or disregarded. It feels the same as that moment on the sand, standing poised to face whatever next came out of those doors. It seems as though his whole life has been sharpened down to this point, to this hammering in his chest and the look of burning terror in Loki's eyes.

_And this is my life now then, _he thinks – _and this is to be my life always, all of it narrowed down to the point that is you. That once hated voice in the shadows that bartered for my life, you who tried to break me, tried to own me. You of whose truth, whose origin I know nothing. Well you have broken me Loki, broken me as you never even meant and I am yours whether it is still forced upon me or not – is it what you wanted, Loki – is it?_

It is nothing Loki ever wanted or sought for. Indeed it is something he sought only to avoid; but looking at Thor now he thinks _yes, yes I won and I made you mine, damn me and damn you too. How then, in this process did I become just so utterly and completely yours and do you even know that I am? Yes, yes of course you do, you knew before I did, didn't you? And I am caught in this current now and must stand its course. _

"Don't –" Loki says, around the choked up mess in his throat, because it looks like Thor is perilously close to saying something – "Not a gods-damned word."

"I could give you three," Thor hazards, but it comes out quiet – almost as a whisper.

"Don't you fucking dare!"

"Loki I –" Thor feels an animal close to bursting out of his chest. Loki feels terror like a storm in the ears and without quite being aware of his own movements is stopping those terrible words with brutal lips, his hands clenched in tight fists, locked at the back of Thor's neck. It is an argument Thor cannot break from, even if he had really wanted to and the animal still trapped inside him feeds on Loki's kiss – if such the onslaught can be called – and it gives back at the same time, wildly, hands in Loki's hair, down his back, hungrily, almost angrily, frightened by the power of his own need and responding in frenzy.

Loki breaks away, breathless and wanting;

"Go to my room."

"You go to your room."

"_You_ do not order _me." _

"Is that right? Go." For a tense moment, the balancing act wavers and it seems like Loki will actually go. Then his eyes narrow, though almost playfully and he grins, almost more quirky than with teeth –

"Make me".

Thor grins as though he could not have hoped for anything better, though if this is Loki asking to be hurt, he will not give him that either, not today. Instead he swings Loki into his arms like a bride, as though he weighs nothing, and indeed it is no effort to Thor at all and when Loki's arms go instantly, pliantly to lace his fingers around Thor's neck and he looks up at him with something very like wonderment sparkling in his eyes – Thor smiles, as smug as he is fond.

He carries Loki to his chamber with no doubt in every step that he has every right to him, making it clear every moment that he owns Loki now as surely as he is owned. When he finally puts him down on the side of the bed he takes advantage of Loki's pliancy to say what has been on his mind and what he knows Loki does not want him to point out –

"You did what I asked."

Loki glares at him, though with Thor's hand against his chest, pushing him down onto the bed it is a more half-hearted glare than he intends.

"Well –" he manages weakly – "Don't get used to it."

"You did a good thing." Thor smiles, tauntingly, raining kisses across Loki's face and down his chest as he works quickly at divesting him of his clothing, kisses and hands likewise stripping Loki of the ability to object or protest nearly as much as he would like to. He knows what Thor is doing and cannot believe how easily he is surrendering to it – how much he _wants _to surrender. It is alarming, liberating and – impossibly-makes him feel a strength he did not know was in him rather than the weakness he always feared.

"Ugh – shut _up," _he groans, unconvincingly, all his limbs stretching and squirming in pleasure beneath Thor's persistent caresses.

"Loki," Thor chides in a soft growl, leaning back to start taking off the armour he still has on from training earlier in the day. He knows, of course how Loki likes him to leave the armour on and has often enough concurred with this wish, enjoying the feel of Loki's soft vulnerability against his powerful hardness in every possible way. But not today, today he wants to be Loki's equal; not his slave, not his superior and he wants Loki to know it. Loki simply whimpers in loss at the removal of Thor's hands from his skin, his body twisting in its tingling and squirming all the more in his fight to not look as needy as he cannot help but feel. Thor laughs at him tenderly –

"Patience Loki –" he murmurs, purposefully slowing his actions down in order to torment him, taking this moment to trickle oil across his fingers and rub it languorously into his cock - "Patience, precious one –"

Loki feels the ice in his heart crack a little and he fears that heart in danger of flooding as Thor's words have chipped away at him so steadily in these past weeks. But the endearment chips at him so dartingly that he has to hold back from crying out; even then he cannot hold back a gasp and his lips form a silent _oh _at the loving stab to the heart. When Thor sinks back against him he _does _cry out in singing ecstasy to feel the golden skin slide against his own, feels the muscles in Thor's arms as they hold his arms down over his head briefly before stroking all the way down and over his chest all the way down to his cock, stroking there with the most feather light caress that makes him cry Thor's name in near pain and brimming over with need. Need that spills from his lips –

"Thor – please –"

Thor kisses the trembling lips gently, torn by the need in Loki's voice between his already aching desire and a simple want to take care of him. A strange want that has been coming on gradually. He suspects Loki both terribly wants looking after and does not know how to accept it. He determines to try, whether Loki accepts or not, and spare him the difficulty by sparing him the choice. But not now. Now his own need comes first, and this need is Loki's too, he knows. His cock presses insistently against Loki's thigh, out of his control and he is not sure if it is this that makes Loki moan into his mouth or the tenderness of his kiss –

"Please what, Loki?" he murmurs gently, because this time he really does not know.

"Please –" Loki repeats, his tears shaming him by springing sharply into the corners of his eyes – "Tell me you love me."

"Oh Loki –" Thor smiles, not a little proud of how far he has come – "Mysweet Loki –"

"Thor _please –" _Loki begs, not wanting to wait for it, never wanting to wait, as Thor slides slow gentle fingers into him, not wanting to hurt him this time, not even slightly, though Loki's own impatience is hurting him badly enough.

"I love you Loki," he insists, kissing him on the forehead as he sinks into him and Loki shakes with a sob, not of pain but of relief on every possible level. His hands unclench and his palms grasp and slide across the slick oiled muscle of Thor's back, his body arching of its own accord to meet the cock sinking into him, filling him, making him complete as though there had always been an emptiness in him that only this could cure. _You, _he thinks – _who have been my strangest sickness, it is only right now that you be its cure as well. _

"More," he whispers greedily, and Thor knows it is words he calls for as he is already thrusting into him deeply and thoroughly in slow perfect strokes. He knows what Loki wants. He has always known what Loki wants –

"I love you," he says again and could swear he hears Loki's heart hum in contented response, sliding one hand up around Loki's throat to hold him there not quite gently and feel that fluttering butterfly pulse and stroke his cock with the other hand – "Treacherous, deceitful wicked thing, I love you." Loki's forehead knits at the description even though the words come out of Thor's lips like the sweetest of endearments – "I didn't stand a chance, Loki-" he goes on, knowing Loki wants nothing more than a continuous stream of vocal affirmation while Thor confirms every utterance of love with the thrusts of his cock into his body. "I could no sooner not love you than cease to breathe. I am over – run with it, beautiful Loki, my sweet, wise, foolish creature, I love you –"

"Yes –" Loki breathes, overwhelmed with satisfaction and frightened by gratitude and when Thor bends down to kiss the breath from his lips he clings to him tight, shaking as he comes and streaming with silent tears. Thor sinks into him one final delicious time, spilling into him, groaning in a rush of more than just seed, as full of Loki as Loki is of him. He stays inside him as he sinks down, forehead to damp forehead, eyes closed as breathing returns and dizziness subsides until he finally pulls out and rolls onto his back taking Loki with him, Loki curling softly into his side, head on Thor's chest.

Loki blinks to himself as he lies there, slightly stunned, no longer even faintly able to deny what he feels, his whole being called into question by the realisation that if Thor were to ask him now he would not be able to lie. He hopes fervidly for several moments that Thor will not ask, at the same time hoping to a degree of near panic that he will. He is not sure if he is relieved or afraid when Thor then speaks –

"So tell me Loki – why the desperate need for your _slave _to love you?"

Loki winces, wishing this were a detail he could so easily change –

"Thor -" he chides softly – "You know as well as I do that it's a word – that's all."

"Yes," Thor concurs – "You are as much my slave as I am yours." Loki makes a slight _pfft _at this –

"I would not go _that _far," he snuggles into Thor's arm in what is perhaps a direct contradiction of his words.

"_Loki –" _Thor sighs, half love, half weary tolerance, though it seems they go together more than he had imagined when he had imagined so many inaccuracies about love – "Don't change the subject."

"You _do _love me don't you Thor?" Loki's voice trembles – "You didn't just say so because I asked?"

"When would I ever do _that," _Thor snorts – "Yes, Loki – I love you. I don't know what that means or where it will lead us but -"

"Good," Loki interrupts quickly, not wanting to be able to get out of it again – "I just – didn't want to be the only one – that's all."

His eyes stare up at Thor's face unblinking and positively startled – _this is the biggest deal of my life _they tell him, eloquently – _don't make too big a deal of it, alright – please?_

Thor reads the plea clearly enough;

"Oh that's all?" he teases.

"That's all," Loki grins, yawning – "Shut up Thor."

_x_

**Okay, that was my token mushy chapter of this fic! I won't do it again – much – well okay yeah I will do it again but probably not until the very end now….which is not that far off actually, four chapters maybe? The next chapter may be horrible and saddening as I'm finally gonna deal with Loki's messy past. You have been warned.**

**Meanwhile, I apologise that these chapters are coming a bit slower now, I was off work for a few weeks in which I did mostly writing of fanfic and sewing a picture of Loki's face (Okay yous didn't need to know that, I just like to share!). Anyway now I have to do work again and it's not half as fun! I'll still keep this coming at least once a week though! ….probably more cause I know how the next bit all goes! **

**By the way anyone who thinks I'm ace and wants to follow me I'm **_**shadow-in-the-shade **_**on tumblr! :-)**


	13. Chapter 13

**WARNINGS: This chapter is horrible, please do not read it if you are upset by rape and torture and all manner of badness all happening to an underage Loki. I'm sorry. I've been promising this back story for a while – I didn't say anyone was gonna like it. I can't guarantee you won't cry. I won't be sad if you skip this! AGAIN LET ME SAY THIS COMES WITH SERIOUS WARNINGS.**

**13. **

"We were travelling through northern Gaul when the Romans came – I must have been maybe ten at the time -" Loki says, taking a sip of wine, swilling the rest thoughtfully in the glass – "I say travelling – we were settled – or as settled as we ever could be. My people had been routed out of Jutland long before I was born and all I ever knew us to be were these tribes scattered through Gaul and Germany. I don't know I just – we kept ourselves invisible, as invisible as we could; there were still broken fragments of regiments that took it upon themselves to track us down. We had stood against Rome once, I heard, and I suppose that was enough motive for them to try and kill us all down the generations."

"My people's tribes fared the same," Thor nods, gently. Loki's voice is level but his fingers are tight on the stem of the glass and his shoulders stiff as boards beneath Thor's hands. They are sat in the light shade beneath the lemon tree on the grass, Loki having decided that if he is going to tell this wretched tale he will do it in circumstances as far removed from the squalor of the past as they can find. So the afternoon finds them, sitting beneath the gently whispering leaves, patterns of shadow and sun dappling in a dance across them and across the ground, wine and fruits close at hand. Thor has discovered that Loki has a positively childish weakness for sweet things and delights in keeping fruits and sugars and all combinations of the two nearby to feed him at any opportunity. He sits now with his back against the bark and Loki sat between his legs with his knees pulled up to his chest and his glass in his hands, for all the world shrinking so completely in on himself that he is like a child in Thor's strong arms, that alternate winding around him and going to the kneading of his tense shoulders.

"I didn't hate my family," Loki says in a sigh, as though he wishes he had – "I didn't think of myself as loving them particularly either – but I didn't hate them. I was the youngest of eight. It made me – inconsequential I suppose - though that had as many advantages as otherwise. I was often out on my own, either as a scouting party for the rest or just – I liked to take time away from the settlement to think – you know? That was how the Romans caught me. I stumbled upon their camp like an idiot, too curious to be as cautious as I should. And that was all. That was all it took to get everyone killed." Loki bites his lip, hearing the bitterness in his own voice, and not wanting it, not wanting to get emotional already when there is so much more to say. He knows he could shorten this, make it all easier – a part of him just wants to skip ahead some four years or so – but beneath the wanting to do that is something deeper that has to get it out, knows that this has all been lodged there like a canker beneath the ribs.

"It was my fault," he says – "my family – my tribe – every bit of it was my fault. The Romans had come close to us before but we were good at staying hidden. They could have moved on again in time if I had not told those men exactly where to find them. Every assumption you ever made that I betrayed my own people was right; I am a traitor, their desecration and death are on me."

Thor hears something in Loki's voice that he is not quite saying and he cannot help but suspect he knows what it is. He understands, he thinks, at least a little – that Loki has convinced himself to take the blame however much it hurts him because it is easier to consider himself a villain than a victim. He does not mean to be cruel, but he knows that Loki has to get it all out and if not now he does not know if he will ever dare face this again;

"They made you, didn't they?" he says gently. For a silent moment he thinks Loki is going to deny it. For the same moment Loki thinks he might too. He takes a swallow of wine and exhales heavily –

"Romans and their torture. All those skills they don't like to shout about. I didn't recognise myself when they were through. You've seen. They soak the horse whips in vinegar and tip the cats with steel – when they got bored of that they raped me –" Thor can feel Loki's back tense as though smarting at the memories and he shifts in his arms. Then he shakes himself a little, like an animal shaking off water – "It's not an excuse. Icould have held out. I broke after less than two days – I just – I could have – it was my fault –"

"Loki –" Thor strokes him with his voice "Loki you are not to blame –"

"I have to be!" Loki almost cries, a shrill edge in his voice – "They made me watch as they killed my family from a hill above the settlement. I saw everything burn and I knew that I had done it. I saw them slit my father's throat and it may as well have been me that did it. They raped and killed until there was nobody I had known who was not desecrated and destroyed. And that was me – I had known I was capable of badness – what child does not? But I had not known I was evil until then. I did not forget it since – or never for long. The so – called captain of theirs used me as his whore while my people burned. He told me this was to be my life from now and so – they kept me alive. It was not a mercy. This fraction of regiment had broken off from the army long before - gone rogue I suppose – and abided by their own rules. There was nothing they could not do to me and nothing I could do. They reminded me of it constantly."

Loki looks down into his glass, raising it before he quite realises it has gone empty. Thor takes it from the hand that is surprised to find itself trembling, fills the glass and holds it for Loki to drink from. He licks his lips, dry from the struggle of telling such a story, and continues -

"I suppose in the scheme of things I was not with them long – I lost some track of time, though I tried not to when I was trying to stay sane. Later I began to feel that sane was not serving me well – I do not think it can have been more than a year, and yet not much less either? I don't know – I – they travelled, and everywhere they went I was taken, kept in one of their carts like the animals. It was better than when we were not on the move."

"It wasn't just you – was it?" Thor hazards, once again aware of something Loki is missing out and having put together some fragments of this from Loki's night-time cries. Again Loki breathes deeply before he speaks –

"There was girl – Leah, her name was, she was one of mine, one that they kept for the same reason they kept me. I suppose some of their tastes had to run to girls after all. I knew her a little – worse still I had liked her, she was older than me and used to teach me what she knew of writing and potions. But they took her as they did me. She was pretty. We shared more than we should have in those days; the covered cart, a tent. I was more used to hearing her screams than my own. One day when we were on the move she came over to me and told me she would rather die than have a Roman child but that she feared it was becoming inevitable, nay imminent. She said she had tried but that she lacked the courage to do it herself – she – she begged me to kill her –"

For the first time in the telling, tears spring into Loki's eyes and he swallow hard, forcing them back until he is sure he can go on;

"I tried to talk her out of it but really – I could think of no argument that could have convinced me, let alone her. She begged me over and over, said she would want this even if it wasn't for the child. I could hardly blame her. I killed her as gently as I could; I kissed her forehead and snapped her neck and that –" he voice, trembling uncontrollably on the end of this, hardens coldly – "That was the last good thing I ever did. Until now".

Thor squeezes Loki gently, drying his cheeks with his fingertips. He no longer needed this proof that there was goodness in Loki but he suspects that this is amongst the only reasons Loki has managed to bring himself to say this.

"I did not think there was anything that could be done to me that was worse than I was already living with every day," Loki says, matter of fact now – "I did not see how they would be able to punish me for this. Well, I was stupid, of course – not to mention now there was only me, to take her share as well as my own. There's more –" he sighs – "So much more I could tell you of all the little things they did, how they turned the ice water on me when I became too filthy to even be a pleasure to them, how much I had to debase myself just to get a drink that wasn't – well, it's not interesting and it's not fun. Maybe another day –"

Loki's eyes go a little glazed, stinging as he stares unbalanced at nothing. Thor squeezes his shoulder to bring him back and when that does not work slaps him on the arm as gently as he can and have Loki still notice it. Loki shakes himself –

"Thanks. Sorry. I don't really know how I survived. I don't know really if I survived. Anyway, one day the air changed – in the duller, pleasanter periods when we were on the road it was easy to tell these changes – we were getting near the sea and perhaps it was the knowledge of approaching civilization that made them all realise they had to start looking like a remnant of army again and not the band of animals they had become. Then I heard them one night discussing what to do about me – they were getting tired of me, I knew that much, it was rather a relief – not tired enough to leave me completely alone of course – but all the relief went when I heard that they were thinking of killing me. I don't know why – perhaps I should have done – but I still did not want to die. In the end they decided there was still something of me left that made me worth the selling. That night they all of them – their numbers were down to maybe thirty by then – came to give me their goodbyes." Loki spits his disgust onto the ground, narrowly missing Thor's leg.

"The next day I was cleaned up properly and taken to be sold as a slave. It was a miracle anyone would buy me – but someone did – I was not long in the delusion that this was an improvement. No alright – it was an improvement, after all there was only one of him. He was a merchant from Rome, incredibly rich, villas dotted all over the empire. No family though – it took me a long time trying to work out if he had got me as an heir or a fuck toy. Both it turned out. I was with him three years, in which time I learnt every bit of how his business worked whilst at the same time learning how to pretend I didn't hate him or all the things he did to me –" Loki's lips twist – "I learnt how to pretend better than I learned anything, it was part of business as well as anything else. And then –" Loki smirks a little – "Then he died. Food poisoning. And I had just the day before found out he had written me into his will as sole heir." Loki almost succeeds in keeping a straight face while he says this. Thor frowns, raising an eyebrow –

"I had no idea food poisoning was so fatal."

"This is Rome, Thor," Loki grins – "Food poisoning is always fatal. Cheers." He clinks his glass almost against Thor's with a hint of threat that is more mischievous than anything else.

"I stayed by his bedside the whole time, playing the dutiful son. I heard the doctor's praise my strength when in truth I was enjoying every second of his death. When he was gone I killed every slave he had let use me for his amusement. I got new ones. I sold most of his estates and business and came to Rome, neither needing to work to keep what I had maintained or in any danger of my new position being challenged. I have done nothing since but cultivate this position and my acquaintances so that nothing could ever touch me again. And I won –" he finishes though the note that should have been triumph comes out bitter – "I won. For years nobody touched me. Literally. I would have screamed, I think, and then when I realised I had desires after all it was only ever towards those who could pose no threat to me. I must have been as cruel to them as anyone had been to me. Hating myself was a small price to pay for security – or so I thought – until you turned up – and ruined everything." Loki turns to look at Thor and kisses him lightly – "I'm glad you ruined everything," he adds "And I hope – you'll keep on doing it."

"Always" Thor replies – "I won't let anything hurt you Loki, ever again I swear."

"You don't need to promise me that Thor, I swore it to myself a long time ago."

"Well then, I will not let you hurt anything either."

Loki's eyes widen as though this is far more amazing.

"Can you?" he wonders, incredulously – "Can you stop that much badness?"

Thor smiles gently, knowing that Loki is not nearly as bad as he thinks he is and one day he hopes to be able to tell him so and have him believe it. But not just yet.

"My Loki –" he murmurs tenderly, tracing the features of his face with his fingers, Loki's lips pressing into his palm – "You are not so terrible".

He kisses Loki beneath the tree and as Loki kisses him back in the warmth and gold of the afternoon and his Thor he knows he really has won now, as he never really had before. Here where the sun and the shade meet in the shimmering leaves and the taste of wine on Thor's lips he is finally a world away from where he was and while the past may pester him again it will never hurt him as it did. Not anymore.

_x_

**I made myself sad writing this and little bit appalled at myself, I hope someone can forgive me. If it helps I'm headed towards a happy ending? Don't hate on me too hard I already feel bad.**


	14. Chapter 14

**14.**

That night Thor wakes in the semi–dark of dawn to the sound of Loki laughing as he emerges shaking from his nightmares. He frowns, afraid that he has failed, that Loki has finally cracked as he knows he fears he will –

"Loki?"

Loki turns to him as his shaking subsides, smiling through his fading fears and shaking his head.

"It's alright Thor – it's alright – it's wasn't one of _those – _it was just – just a nightmare. I never –" he breaks off, smiling and taking a deep shuddering breath into stillness – "I never had a normal nightmare like that before, just monsters and not – not the usual, I – could get used to it."

There is a part of Thor that could laugh at Loki for this, not really understanding how a nightmare can be better than another nightmare – but another part of him both loves Loki and wants to protect him all the more for being _grateful _for a dream that is at least not as bad as usual. Even so Loki rests his head against Thor's chest, curling himself in so that all of Thor's limbs surround him as he has become accustomed to on those nights when he could not see for the sweat dripping into his eyes. Thor strokes his hair and shoulders until he feels Loki calm, though he suspects that this time Loki more simply enjoys than desperately needs the attention.

"Loki, my Loki," he murmurs to him like a lullaby, and it is a song he has learnt by heart now, it is the song that his heart beats to, thrumming to that pulse, the music of it washing over Loki like a water that clears away all badness. It hurts Thor's heart to see his proud arrogant Loki like this every night, to feel him cling to him like he is Thor's child or little brother. It hurts - but it is still Loki, he knows, as much if not more than the sly, commanding creature he has come to know by day. But there are as many Lokis as there are changes in the weather; he knows that now and loves them all.

"Tell me," his lips press kisses into Loki's head that Loki could swear he feels seep into his brain.

"Monsters –" Loki whispers, sounding too like that child Thor knows he never was – "Well, alright, just the one but it had so many heads it seemed like many – like in the stories, you know? I fought it and every time I cut off a head it grew another two back. Its breath was _foul – _were you breathing in my face?" he turns to Thor with the glint of a grin in his eye. Thor punches him lightly on the arm.

"I know those stories, I was read them as a child. As I recall the hero cut the heads at the base did he not?"

"I recall he cauterised them as they grew back." Loki shrugs – "Tales of valour not really my thing. Anyway I don't think Ireally _wanted _to kill it – so much as just get away, but everywhere was water all around." Loki curls over to go back to sleep and Thor sinks down behind him, curling protectively into his back –

"I hope I don't go back there" Loki yawns.

"If you do, dream me with you and I will kill the monster for you."

"Yes," Loki breathes in a contented sigh – "You would, wouldn't you?" He smiles a smile meant to be secret but Thor knows and traces Loki's lips with his finger as they curve, his heart warming as only Loki's happiness can warm it. By the time he has finished kissing Loki's shoulder Loki is asleep again and this time dreaming pleasantly.

_x_

The next morning a slave brings Loki a letter that makes him frown, chewing his finger as he squints at it over the end of breakfast. Thor looks up concerned –

"What is it?"

Loki hands him the note, still frowning. The contents make nothing any clearer to Thor for they seem to be written in a language he has never seen –

"I don't speak this language –" he frowns, handing it back to Loki unread.

"It's not a language. It's a code. That's not what I don't understand."

"You can read this?"

"Yes."

"Well what does it say? Perhaps I can help?"

Loki gives him a rather withering look that says quite plainly _I doubt it. _

"Whoever wrote this must have known that I could read this I just cannot think who would have guessed that – alright –" Loki refocuses – It says, _"Tiberius' army amassed in hiding on outskirts of Rome. Suspect connection to conspiracy between members of Royal family and Commander Lucius Aelius Sejanus. Suspect those in league with aforementioned to be in extreme danger. Rome unsafe. Leave." _– who would even _know_ that? More than that – who would know my allegiances to warn me of this?"

"You're going to have to fill me in_ –_" Thor shakes his head in bewilderment – "I'm a gladiator – they do not tell us the ins and outs of whatever intrigue Rome is currently embroiled in."

"_Really?" _Loki groans – "I thought _everyone _knew – The Wart long since abandoned the city, he took up an almost permanent residence on Capri leaving Sejanus in charge in Rome."

"Who's Sejanus?"

Loki rolls his eyes impatiently – "Gods! Consul? Commander of the Praetorian guard? He was nobody but he's risen to the highest point in Rome and everyone's knows he's long since been trying to marry his way into the imperial family and make his succession more valid –"

Loki cannot keep the faint tone of admiration out of his voice.

"Succession?" Thor interrupts – "But the emperor's nephews come first surely?"

"That's the point! That's why he's been trying to validate it. But it's been clear to everyone for ages that a move on his part to take over from the emperor, whether through fair means or foul, is only to be expected in light of the Wart's continued absence. Everyone of any note who is not held back by an antiquated moral system has been backing him in this –"

"Every unscrupulous nobleman or politician you mean?"

"_Now _you're getting it!"

"Every unscrupulous nobleman such as –" Thor's eyes narrow as he works it out.

"_Finally!" _Loki groans. "Essentially, what I have from this is that he's made his move but the emperor has somehow been tipped off and now Sejanus and anyone who has openly supported him is going to be in deep shit –"

"And that includes you!"

"Yes, thank you for that observation Thor! But now someone's tipped _me _off we can get ourselves the hell out of Rome – today if necessary. I just wish I knew who it was –"

Thor takes the letter from his hand again and looks at it just for a moment –

"It's Natasha."

"How the hell would you –"

"This scribble - here –" Thor points to something Loki had thought was an ink splotch – "It's a spider – _The Widow, _like she said."

Loki nods, annoyed that Thor has worked this out where he did not –

"That makes sense. She _would _know this was relevant to me – to us. We just – do you know _anyone _in Rome? Anyone trustworthy?"

"You ask me this? You, who have the connections in Rome?"

"I _said _trustworthy, Thor".

"To what purpose?"

"I have just one other estate – in the south of Gaul, but if we're to slip out un-noticed from what I fear may be to come, it will have to be just us – you and I. It would help to leave someone we could trust here to look over this place until such time as we can return."

"Loki, everyone I know is a gladiator –"

"Fine! Is there one you can trust?"

Thor thinks for a moment and finally nods –

"Yes I think there might be," he says finally – "If he's still alive."

_x_

Whilst Loki paces his estate, alternately anxious to no effect and getting everything in order for them to leave, Thor heads to the coliseum one final time. There is a shame in coming here like this that all his loyalty to Loki cannot quite spare him, a shame that compounded by the sneer of the guards at the gladiator's gate;

"Oh look it's the gladiator turned pet," one of them smirks. "Tell me, German, can you still handle a weapon or just fetch sticks?" Thor bears this patiently, even when the second guard grins at this and follows it with a comment of such appalling vulgarity Thor only controls himself by imagining what Loki would say if he had been there, down to the last detail where the guards head rolls out across the street and is crushed beneath the hooves of a passing horse. It takes all his patience and constraint to make his inquiries and then far more time than it should to get any useful answer at all.

His new-found information takes him to a fine house on Janiculum Hill where he stops in the fading light and the gathering cloud to sigh before he knocks for entry, expecting similar treatment here than in the coliseum. Instead, having requested to see General Thaddeus Ross, he is glared at for his inquiries and told firmly to leave with no further information. Something in the old man's tone brooks no argument and he nods and turns to leave.

He is half way down the hill when he hears footsteps running behind him and a girl's voice calling him to wait. He turns and sees a small cloaked figure hurrying after him the way he has just come. He frowns and pauses for her to catch up and when she does he recognises her as the girl from the arena –

"You were at my house just now," she gasps, breathing heavily from running – "Please – why were you asking after Bruce?" She looks up only on the end of her sentence and when she sees Thor's face her own darkens – "Oh!" she exclaims and it turns into a scowl –" I know you – you're the one who nearly killed him!" Thor cannot help feeling ridiculous in cringing beneath the girl's glare, but he feels himself almost shrinking himself. He opens his mouth to say something, possibly _sorry _though it seems insufficient under the circumstances, but she pre – empts him –

"You didn't want to. I understand but – what do you want with him now?"

"Look, I know this sounds insane but I have nobody else to ask – nobody I could trust – now I need help and the only person I have been able to think of is someone I only ever spoke with two words together. But I have this idea I can trust him and just now that has to be enough."

She looks at him searchingly a moment and finally nods –

"What kind of help?"

Thor explains, at least as much as that they are leaving Rome in a hurry and do not want to leave Loki's only safe hold in the city unprotected. As he says this Betty puts a hand to her mouth, stifling a slight little laugh –

"That's more perfect than you could know" she smiles – "Bruce is hiding. You see I've let my father think he was dead. He never was a gladiator, but a citizen of Rome –"

"I have heard of them" Thor nods – "Romans who fight as Gladiators for sport." he tries to keep his tone neutral not wanting to offend the lady but it must have come out otherwise for she is immediately defensive –

"It was not _sport!" _she snaps – "Father made him. Made him believe he had a chance with me if he would test his new weapons for him as a gladiator. It was _never _a chance – father hates him and hoped it would get him killed. Now he thinks he has succeeded and between that and his growing power in Rome, is already planning my marriage to someone else."

"The balance of power in Rome looks set to swing wildly," Thor interrupts her gently – "I would not be so disheartened – and with a change in location perhaps the accompanying appearance of status may sway your father's opinion."

"Let us hope so," she replies, gravely, nodding her respect and her hope as she directs Thor to the crumbling tenement across town where he can find The Hulk who is so no longer.

_x_

"_Really?" _Loki nearly explodes, tense from anxious waiting, when Thor returns exhausted that evening with Bruce in tow – "Have you gone out of your tiny German mind?"

Thor is tired from the day spent running from one side of the city to another, and out of patience.

"Loki, this is Bruce, Bruce this is my….master." He half expects Loki to take extreme affront at the tone he cannot keep out of his voice but to his relief Loki does not bother, instead looking curiously at the man who seems so much smaller out of the arena it is hard to believe it is the same person. Eventually Loki smirks and nods –

"I see, that's your play is it?" he raises an eyebrow at the erstwhile Hulk who does not take the bait. "Oh very well, if he says you can be trusted – I'm afraid there's no time to really fill you in – Thor we have to leave and leave now, I've already saddled the horses – we'll send you word when we have it to send." And with that Loki heads to the stables. Thor smiles at Bruce apologetically –

"Loki has informed all the staff here of your stewardship of the place – I am sorry –"

"Don't be –" Bruce waves this off as nothing, but then catches Thor's arm as he turns to follow Loki – "Listen – this crisis that runs your master out of town – it would not happen to portend ill effect to other corrupt persons in power would it?"

"I would say that depends upon General Thaddeus' political leanings –"

"I see we're on the same page. Like most of the Praetorian Guard he has of late become closely affiliated with Consul Sejanus."

Thor smiles broadly and pats him on the shoulder heartily –

"I think I can safely wish you and your lady all the best for the future –"

"_Thor!" _Loki's yell echoes back to him – "Come on!"

Thor makes another awkward smile, and follows in the direction Loki went. Loki, already on his horse, is even pacing nervously from a mounted position and as Thor swings into the saddle beside him the sky overhead begins to rumble ominously in agreement.

_x_

**Phew, I'm sorry about all the plot and history in this chapter! I hope it makes sense but hey if yous want to read up more on the fall of Sejanus it's a terribly exciting, gruesome moment in history! Needless to say it's highly unlikely any of his supporters really ****_did _****get tipped off but that's 'cause Natasha didn't really exist back then. Sad but true. More of your regular feels in the next chapter though there's still some plot to get through!**

**Also yes I did a cheesy thing and if you don't know what monster Loki was dreaming about I'm gonna be so disappointed! :-)**


	15. Chapter 15

**15.**

The rain starts almost the moment they start out from Loki's villa, fat, warm droplets splashing their faces wet and shiny within seconds. Loki groans and wriggles in the saddle; he _loves _thunder – under normal circumstances he would be getting so excited by it, and looking over at Thor on his horse beside him does nothing to lessen that feeling. He bites his lip, determined not to be distracted like that; just to be annoyed, if anything by the fact that it would happen _now. _Now when he cannot enjoy it and indeed is going to made disgustingly uncomfortable by the wet.

To their advantage, the rain makes their leaving Rome all the more invisible, to their disadvantage it means they can barely see three feet in front of the their horses and so Loki does not even see the horse that rides up beside him or know of its presence until he feels the tip of a sword at his throat and a voice hisses near his ear –

"Stop. Stop right there. If you keep going that way you'll stumble right onto the Roman army. Follow me."

Loki peers at the rider through the rain and the dark and is surprised at the relief when he recognises Natasha, who lowers the sword but keeps it in her hand as she rides ahead of them through the trees. On the edge of the copse another rider emerges from in front, slipping into pace with Natasha's horse and they ride out ahead of Loki and Thor leading them away from Rome, away from the emperor's encampment, away through the rain and the dark, down a dirt track that feels as close to safety as their situation can offer.

The storm follows them as they ride, and there is not a one of the party who is afraid rather than invigorated by it. The earth reverberates to the rumble of the sky and the lightning crashes spectacularly through the purple sky, stabbing at the earth to make it shudder. It is all Loki can do to stay in the saddle for wanting Thor to simply fuck him through it until the storm is passed.

Instead they ride for hours, following the pace Natasha sets and a style in doing this that suggests she is more familiar with undercover escape than the rest of them will ever be. Finally she comes to a halt at a point where the road begins to dip down into a valley, the sky lightening, the whole world thrumming as though washed clean and the lightest rain now falling in the grey–green light of dawn.

"There's a tavern just down there," – she gestures with her horse when the others catch her up – "I suggest we rest there the day and continue under darkness at least until we are out from the last of the city states."

"You're coming with us?" Thor asks in surprise.

"Until that point. We were on our way to leaving when my scouts encountered the Emperor's army outside of Rome. We sent our army on their way and came back for you."

This prompts Loki to ask the question that has been plaguing him through the whole of their ride through the dark –

"Why?"

Natasha looks at him sharply, as though offended –

"I repay my debts," she says simply. Unsure how to respond to what he suspects is the truth from Natasha, Loki shrugs and they follow her down the valley.

It is evident when they reach the tavern that Natasha has already checked the place and the people who run it, for nobody bats an eyelid at their arrival at such a strange time of the morning or their request for beds for the day. They say little over a brief meal, Loki feeling the immense strangeness of eating with people who might almost be considered friends. It occurs to him he has not had friends before, or at least not since before the Romans came, and he is not entirely sure what to do about this or how to be and so simply eats in hungry silence. Thor watches Loki, amused to see him eat with most of his usually exquisite manners thrown to one side. Clint watches Thor watching Loki, his eyebrows knitting in perplexed curiosity at what he sees in Thor's look and Natasha in turn watches them all watching each other.

Loki retires first, leaving Thor to finish the most welcoming mug of wine he has had in a long time and, seeing something in Clint's puzzled frown as he watches Thor, Natasha leaves shortly after.

"Did you never think of leaving?" Clint asks when they are gone – "He leaves you enough opportunity."

It has occurred to Thor too, that he could have run away at so many points, especially in the last two days. Loki has fallen into every assumption that he will not, so much as to let him alone and continually give him his own space. He has trusted him. And this is not even the whole reason that to leave would be unthinkable, though he remembers well enough how much he would have given to escape at the beginning.

"I did once –" Thor begins, then shakes his head, laughing aloud a little at the thought.

"No," Clint concurs – "I did not think so. Is it love?"

Thor swallows hard for a moment, floored by the direct bluntness of the question, but there is no judgement in it and he finds himself nodding as he thinks about it –

"Yes," he says quietly, feeling the truth of it like a warm place in a snow storm – "Yes it is."

As he gets up to head up after Loki the sky rumbles overhead to let them know the thunder has found them again.

_x_

Upstairs Thor finds Loki peering into every corner of their small room, suspicious and rat – like, turning his nose up at every corner;

"I don't like it," he states, petulantly – "It smells. And the bed is hard. _All _the things are hard. Thor, make it better!"

"It's only for one night Loki – well - one day before we're gone –"

"Then make that better!"

"I'm not sure I can –" Thor takes Loki in his arms, smiling faintly as they stand beside the window – "Since _I _am also hard."

Loki smiles, finally, winding himself around Thor like ivy, shivering in pleasure at the crack of thunder outside, positively purring with it –

"Mmmm, that _will _make it better."

Thor looks at Loki looking up at him, eyes sparkling in the yellow cindery light of morning and feels his heart swell with the rumble of the thunder overhead. Loki melts into him and his skin crackles and twitches madly with the electricity in the air. Kisses that start gentle stand no chance when the lightning cracks outside, slamming through them in crazy jagged shivering and Loki has to bite his lip to stop himself saying aloud that touching Thor is like touching the thunder itself. Thor feels it; not just a part of the storm but the storm itself, and Loki the ground into which he needs to crash, a tree to be split and set on fire by his touch. He makes short work of Loki's attire and when he swings him round onto the bed Loki cannot even bring himself to comment upon its hardness, all the more with Thor's own hardness pressing intently against him.

The sky shakes overhead, so close as to rumble through every inch of the skin, and Thor cannot be gentle beneath that kind of power and he kisses Loki snarling, teeth chasing around his neck and over his throat, his fingers dragging red marks into his skin, striping his back until Loki returns the snarl, scratching back until they twist and fight in a scratching biting mess of raw need and lust. It is not a real fight for dominance and they both know it, for Thor would win hands down in a physical contest, but he gives Loki leverage as much because he enjoys putting him back down as because Loki enjoys both the chance to hurt and being put down. Eventually Thor ends it, pinning Loki savagely on his now smarting back, and holding him firmly in place while he expels the last of his feigned struggles;

"Brute," he spits, shivering with pleasure at the thrill of it, agonisingly aroused at being thus pinned beneath the forces of both Thor and the storm. Thor cannot resist that pouting lip, kissing Loki fiercely and quickly before pulling back to sneer, lip curling with his own lust –

"Oh and you hate it _so _much," he mocks – "To feel these _brutish _hands upon your precious skin –" for Loki's skin _is _like silk beneath his callused palms and the softness ignites his fingers to all the greater savagery whilst Loki moans and writhes shamelessly beneath that rough and loving touch.

"_Fuck –" _Thor growls, cock twitching against that silk, his face pressing like an animal nosing into Loki's neck – "_Loki –" _he shifts to grind his aching erection against Loki's matching hardness, Loki almost screaming at the contact. Thor manages to grin at the obvious pain of Loki's need, sliding their cocks together until it is too much even for him to manage; he slicks his cock with spit, hungry and impatient as the sky is to shatter the earth. It is somehow now impossible to wait another moment and he yanks Loki down the bed and impales him on his cock as the lightening cracks again in beautiful complicity, drowning out Loki's scream as his nails score tracks into Thor's shoulders. Thor cradles Loki's thrashing head in one powerful arm as he thrusts into him savage as the storm, the thunder rolling across the earth, sending vibrations up through the stone walls that ripple through the bodies that heave against one another in age old battle. There are no words to the fight, simple utterance in growls and snarls fit to compete with the swollen roaring sky.

To fight, to mate, to rage amongst the elements, it is all that a creature could need to live and not simply survive in the world. Thor knows it; it is as though he never knew anything before he laid a hand on Loki. Loki is the lightning to him, bright, exciting, impossible to hold down, insanely destructive and endlessly compelling. The impossibility of the attempt to hold all that still will never stop him trying for he is the thunder to Loki, and Loki looks at him with fixated eyes as Thor rams into him, uncontrollable, unstoppable as the storm and just as natural, as necessary to life. Thor is the storm itself and Loki will never let that go now, never - any more than Thor will let go of him.

As the rain falls outside, falls in a great heavy mass, the fever that rages inside finally breaks, Thor spilling his seed furiously as the storm drenches the earth and Loki is with him without any aid of hands, coming relentlessly and soaking the skin between them. As Thor sinks down onto Loki he feels as though this is the earth in which he has finally staked his home; strange to feel so rooted at a time like this, on the move and without a base, but he has never felt more so in his life. He knows now that Loki is the earth to his sky, the night to his day and that now they have come together they will never function individually again. He finds he minds this much less than he could have imagined.

As they roll onto their backs and the thunder in turn begins to roll its way to further hills Loki grins, clasping Thor's hands as they lie side by side.

"Well" he announces – "That was beautiful timing. Really."

Thor turns his head to look at that sweetly smiling face, smiling at the way Loki manages to sound sarcastic even when he means what he is saying. He feels his heart leap with the hundred things he would like to express but all he manages it –

"I love you Loki."

Loki smiles back and his eyes dart with smirking green –

"This bed's still hard, though".

Thor groans and rolls over;

"Go to sleep Loki."

"But I _can't," _Loki whines.

"Yes you can. Or you'll feel terrible in the morni – evening – when we wake up"

"But _Th-or!_"

"_Lo-ki!" _Thor whines back, mocking him.

"You shouldn't talk to your master like that," Loki yawns, sleepily.

"Oh I'm sorry – go to sleep _master." _

"But – the bed's so _hard _and the sky's so _awake – _I'll _never _sleep like this –" Loki's grumbles trail off as he rolls over onto his side, yawning; Thor turning over with a tolerant groan to hold him as he falls almost instantly asleep.

_x_

**Of course now I'm just picturing Loki being all like "The sky's awake – so _I'm _awake"….sigh.**

**This was meant to be the second to last chapter but then a thunderstorm happened and I had to write it into here and so….the idiots never even left Italy like I meant them to (for want of a better phrase of course _Italy _didn't exist at that time!) So yeh. Two more chapters. At least, given the rate these guys are going!**

**Also sorry for the delay in this or any mistakes, I've been in hospital this week and I'm not feeling too shiny. I take having finished this chapter as a sign of getting better though! :-)**


	16. Chapter 16

**16.**

The late afternoon brings with it a calm in the wake of the storm that is not reflected in Loki's waking mood. He has no sooner rubbed his eyes and yawned than he starts to complain –

"Ugh, I feel disgusting," he sits up sulkily, rubbing at his aching limbs more than they particularly warrant – "I ache. Everything aches –"

"Shouldn't you be used to that by now?" Thor also sits up, yawning benignly.

"Not like that," Loki snaps, refusing to be too easily placated – "This _bed_, this _room _– it stinks. I don't like it," he grumbles, peevishly. "I cannot believe I am being forced to endure such circumstances." He gets up, crossly, and looks out of the window, scrunching his nose up in disgust at the world outside – "Ugh I hate this – waking so late like this. Living in the dark. I hate it."

"You like the sun so much you never come out of the shade?" Thor knows it is probably a mistake to point out to Loki when he is being irrational but he cannot always help himself.

"Just because I love it does not mean I have to let it burn me," Loki snaps. Thor watches him, frowning, getting that strange impression that they are talking about something other than what they are talking about but not wanting to yank Loki's chain any more un-necessarily – at least for the moment. A part of him burns to tell Loki not to be such a precious cunt – and especially given the threat they leave behind. Another part of him sees something twitch behind Loki's eyes that he does not want to poke at – so he keeps quiet.

Loki stomps and mutters to himself, all but throwing around everything he touches as he sets about getting dressed. Thor tries to ignore the semi silent tantrum for as long as he can, tries to remind himself that however normal, nay positively pleasant their current conditions are to him it is a far remove from the luxury with which Loki has become accustomed to surround himself. Nevertheless, Loki's ostentatious passive aggressiveness grates on him for several fraught moments until finally dressed Loki sits down on the side of the bed, and just _has _to make a face that so screams his disapproval that it is enough to finally make Thor crack. Well he supposes patience never was his strongest suit.

"For the gods sake, Loki, enough! You have endured worse than this – it's –" he breaks off, angry at himself for his temper, not needing the flash of cutting fury - and beneath it he is sure a little spark of hurt – in Loki's eyes to tell him that this was the worst thing he could possibly have said.

"Yes, thank you for that dazzling observation Thor!" Loki snarls, acid enough to burn his own tongue – "Curiously enough I knew this before you did, thank you _so _much for the reminder!"

The acid stings enough so that Thor does not relent as he otherwise would have done, even though he knows he is treading on dangerous ground, skirting perilously close to areas in which Loki has given him no permission to wander.

"Well what's the problem then?"

"Are you actually an imbecile or have I not been iterating _every _problem volubly enough?"

"Loki please, calm down –" Again he supposes he should have known better – asking Loki to calm down at any time is a red flag to a bull. Loki lets loose a string of expletives, all directed personally to Thor's stupid head, all of which Thor bears right until Loki crowns it off with –

"and who the _fuck_are you to tell _me _to calm down – _slave?_" Loki fills it with a glare of spiteful challenge and Thor winces as though Loki has struck him – with this word that Thor knows he has been careful not to say in so long that for him to say it now just as intently stings him more than he expected a word could. He turns from Loki coldly and makes towards the door – though with as much intention of really walking out as Loki had to really hurt him.

"I beg your pardon – _master,_" he retorts with more ice than he knew he could have in him. Loki sits for a moment, mouth opening and closing, chest heaving in frustrated fury before – more unexpected to him than to Thor – he bursts into tears and Thor, just as quickly, softens completely and turns back to him.

He is not sure when this happened – when he realised that he could not bear to see Loki cry, even if Loki had brought it entirely on himself. He could not be angry, he could not do anything other than go to him and hold him if Loki would allow it – and Loki always did within minutes of pathetically putting up a fight and pushing him away as he does now. A stinging ripple of tenderness shudders through Thor's chest as he holds Loki's head against it, those messy tears seeping through his tunic and it comes out of his mouth in a ripple of meaningless word, all the _hush love hush _and _there there's _that would never work on him but sooth Loki as though he were a child.

"I love you Loki –" he murmurs, running his hand through the dark hair gentle as a breeze – "Gods that we adore, I love you so much –"

"That –" Loki sniffs – "Wasn't really up for debate – was it?" He looks up at Thor sharply on the last two words, that flash of easy terror lurching in his eyes. Thor shushes him with kisses to his forehead;

"Never Loki, never. Now –" he is surprised Loki does not take offence at how much he speaks to him as though he is a child, but if anything Loki seems to like it – "What's really the matter, little one?"

Loki sniffs and rubs his eyes and nose with the edge of a bed sheet –

"Heh –" he smiles – "_Little one". _He smiles again because he likes it and tries to avoid Thor's question, looking down and avoiding his eye.

"Come on Loki," Thor coaxes – "Tell me."

"Nothing." Loki tries, stubbornly – "What makes you think that –"

Thor stops him with a chaste, gentle kiss to the lips –

"_Loki_ –" he admonishes lovingly – "Come on". Loki says nothing for a couple of twistingly long minutes and when he does reply his voice sounds distant and he still refuses to look Thor in the eye.

"I told you about – you know how my people were the travelling kind – and then – that year I – I _travelled _before coming to Rome – I – I didn't ever want to be on the move again after that. Whatever it may be I haven't left Rome since I settled there – I don't – it makes me –"

Thor cups Loki's face in his hand and Loki chews at his lip, his jaw trembling with how much he does not want to admit – ever – to feeling afraid.

"Did I not tell you I wouldn't let anything hurt you Loki? Trust me when I say this, there is nothing that could threaten you that would not first have to get through me – and I am not so easy to get through." Loki's teeth let go of his lip, and he turns damp sparkling eyes to Thor –

"Really? Just like that? You would defend me?"

"With my life Loki, I swear."

Loki clings to him for several moments until his eyes dry and his breathing becomes normal again and Thor lets him be the one to finally say they should go down and meet the others.

By the time they get downstairs and see the others, already having eaten and ready to move on, Loki has composed himself enough that nobody would know he had ever been troubled, though when Natasha raises an eyebrow and asks somewhat archly how they slept they realise she must have heard every sound they made through the thin tavern walls. Loki scowls just the tiniest scowl that only Thor can see and which perhaps only he can read – it means that while Loki could not have given a second thought to the others having heard all the noises they made during their tryst with the thunder he would be mortified, consternated beyond belief to think that they had heard him cry.

Neither of them say anything however other than for Loki to object when Natasha then asks if they are ready to move on – protesting that _of course _they are not; he has not eaten yet. Perhaps she notices that he is hiding more feeling than she imagined him to have because she hides her irritation and impatience to be on the move again just as well.

_x_

In the wake of the storm the countryside that they ride out into is washed clean, as if they do ride out into the brand new light of morning after all. All the colours in the world seem to have been washed brighter by the rain, thrown into sharp relief by the lightning, tangy with the scent of the rain. The green is dazzling, the red of the roads and the hills like fresh clay and the fields around them a completed patchwork across the sway of the land. It cheers Loki up and keeps him from further objection for the duration of their time on the road.

As they ride Loki says little. He wonders about Natasha and Clint – what their inclinations would be if it were not for Thor's typically pleasant and friendly instinct to be sociable. For himself he wonders how his life has all of a sudden it seems become so wound up in the threads of other peoples existences. Thor in particular, he knows now, is wound throughout him so that to untangle that one thread from all that makes him up would make all the rest fall apart like dust. It frightens him to feel that tugging at the heart, as though the ties that bind them are real and stretched by any manner of distance, even so close as they are as they ride almost side by side.

But the voices of these people wash over him like rain and that one dear voice is cleansing to his fractious heart.

It has not failed to occur to Loki that Thor could easily leave – _could _already have left him many times over the last few days. He has given him all the freedom that a slave is possible to have and he wonders if he were to give it for real – how quickly Thor would leave. He wonders if he would allow it. He would like to think, he realises, that he would allow it. He knows what Thor is; a prince, a man and a human being and while he cannot see him as a slave he could not bear to see him gone. No; he would _not _allow it. He knows that now. If Thor left, wherever he went, Loki would follow. It is a terrifying prospect but one that he knows now he has no choice in. he cannot exist in his newly gathered together self without Thor. He would not be who he seems to be becoming – and he suspects he likes that person an awful lot better than the person he used to be. .

_No. _He thinks fervidly – _no, however dear you are to me I will never let you go. Never. _

"Loki?" He finally hears Thor's voice cutting gently, probingly through his thoughts – "Loki did you hear me? We're stopping."

Loki reigns up hard and sets about the task of pretending his mind had never wandered – that he had not been so hypnotised by the lull of that voice that he had become unable to hear the words addressed to him. He looks at Thor as they dismount – the gladiator, so strong and fierce and graceful, so strangely tender and smilingly sweet – he had never wanted, ever, to be unable to survive without another one person, he wonders how it ever happened, curses that it happened but looking at Thor smiling at him with those eyes that smiling bring the sunlight – it is not possible to wonder for long.

_x_

**I'm so sorry this has been so long, I've been so so busy this week….plus Altador Cup has started on neopets and this is stealing my entire life at the moment – nevertheless I promise hand on heart that the next chapter will not take so long to reach you!**

**Also this fic has grown again – and I know I said this last time but this time there really are just two chapters left to go!**


	17. Chapter 17

**17.**

"We're lost, aren't we?" Loki groans for the umpteenth time, scowling at Thor from his horse, hand on his forehead in a melodramatic gesture of weariness – "I thought you said you could map read?"

"I _said_ how hard could it be," Thor mutters, scowling at the huge, unfolded sheet of paper in front of him and trying to work out how to hold it and remain mounted at the same time, knowing how cross Loki will get if they have to dismount _again_ this one day.

It has been like this almost ever since they made their farewells to Clint and Natasha just outside of Milan, the two of them headed east for Dacia and beyond whilst Loki and Thor had struck out for Southern Gaul, a mixture of sorry to say goodbye and pleased to be on their own again.

"You'll hear from us again," Natasha had said; and Loki believed this to be true, though she had left no indication as to how any communications would be relayed or received.

Shortly after this he had admitted to Thor that, having never had cause to travel there before he did not know exactly how to get to where they were going, though he had brought with him all the papers pertaining to his ownership of the place along with the directions and a map of their route that he had guessed they would need. It was perhaps not all as fool proof as he had imagined; for though, certainly, they were making progress they had been continually getting lost ever since entering what they assumed to be Gaul.

Additionally travelling made Loki tetchy and uneasy and Thor was alternating between treading very carefully so as not to anger or upset him, and becoming impatient with treading carefully and continually having to find ways of venting his exasperation that were often compatible with making Loki feel better, but often left dents in the trees and tavern walls that they passed on their way. It had become easy not to take it out on Loki when he understood the cause of his unease and Loki did not try to hide the cause. Indeed in their time travelling, Loki had steadily poured out more and more details of his past like steaming poison from a bottle he had kept corked for too long. Thor imagined he could see that poison dispersing as Loki expressed it, tainting the air around them before dissipating into something a great deal closer to nothing than it had ever been. It did not make for easy listening and Loki apologised constantly for the telling of it, apologies that Thor did nothing but tell him to cease when he could see the cathartic effect Loki's narration was having upon him. As though just to voice the atrocities meant he could let go of them, if not entirely then at least he held them now far further from his heart than they had been before.

For his part, Thor said little when these discussions came up but employed every method of soothing the distress that he could find. It was not a new distress, he understood, the pain was old and deeply rooted and the expression of it, the removal to some degree through that expression – tugged at those roots as it pulled them out. Thor had not imagined that the help he could offer would not seem other than meagre, but in truth there was no end to the healing power of touch, kisses, iterations of devotion and the continual reassurances that he was here, that he was not going anywhere and that he would kill anyone who so much as dared lay a hand on Loki again. It was with immense relief that he could see Loki every day look at him in response to these assertions with eyes that seemed to accept this and more and more; even to believe it.

For Thor the greatest alarm was how truly every promise he was making Loki rang within his heart. As they rode they often talked, but perhaps just as often fell into an easy silence and in these silences Thor would usually find himself reflecting on how he had come to be here and – more often than not – to wonder how Loki had so smoothly become the still point of his fast moving world. It was no question to him that everything he said was true, only sometimes, he reflected, he did not know the truth himself until the words were out of his mouth. But it was without a doubt, he knew, that he would protect Loki with his last breath, whether from outside threat or his own nature; a nature Thor had finally come to understand was just as capable of turning clawed hands in upon himself as it was of turning them outwards to scratch at the world around him. There was no pain, it frightened Thor to realise, that he would not gladly take if it would spare Loki anything.

Yet even this, all this pondering, was nowhere close to the confusing mess that he had once laboured under in his mind. He no longer hid from the simple answer that it all came down to one inevitable truth and that was that Loki was everything to him. He could not exist as the person he had become, a person he was coming to almost rather like – without Loki.

These understandings of the depth of their feelings that had become clearer to both of them as they travelled did not, however, stop them from bickering constantly. If anything, Loki suspected, it spurred them to bicker more freely in the knowledge that they _could _without it being bad enough to scare the other person off.

"How is it even possible to read it wrong _so _many times? Surely even by averages you should have got it right once or twice by now."

"I _have. _You just never notice when things are going right. Only when they're going wrong."

"Do you even know what _country _we're in?"

"Look Loki, if you think you can do so much of a better job why don't _you _map read? It is _your _map and _your _villa anyway."

"Yes but I'm not the one who said, and I quote, _How hard can it be? I can do this, oh look at me the mighty Thor, so great and perfect-_"

"I did _not _say that Loki, dear gods don't impersonate me, you do it ill."

"Oh look at me I use words like _impersonate _just to prove I'm not the big dumb lump you think I am."

"Are you enjoying yourself?"

"Well, yes; I confess for a minute there I was. Now where in tarnation are we?"

"According to the map we're going the right way!"

"Yes well I can see a tree we passed twice already that says differently."

"I really hate you Loki."

"I hate you too. Come on, _I'll _map read."

Loki's map reading, at any rate, proves better than Thor's and after only a few more days confusion they find themselves something like back on track again.

As they progress on into Gaul they gradually start travelling more and more by day and stopping in taverns by night. Thor cannot help but notice Loki's mood change in perceivable response to this change; and after all, he suspects that now they are well into the province of Gaul and far enough away from Rome, they are probably much safer than they were, therefore lessening the need to travel undercover.

Moreover they have heard, from gossip gathered in the places they have stayed, that the troubles with Sejanus are over. They have heard of the massacre they were able to avoid – of how the consul fell, taking so many with him. So many Roman noblemen killed outright in the effort to purge his influence from the city and re-establish the emperor's not – so – well – received power. Thor could not help noticing the look of pained almost sympathy on Loki's face when they heard how even Sejanus's children had not been spared the cull, his six year old daughter raped and murdered, his son declared a man before his time so that Rome could still claim it did not kill the innocent. Loki's lip had curled in bitter, silent detestation of the place they left behind.

For a moment, upon the immediate receipt of these atrocities, Thor had genuinely thought Loki might make some comment in passing moral judgement. In the end only his lip had twitched and he had said with false breeziness –

"Well. Thank goodness we got out on time."

"Indeed," Thor had said later, when they were alone – "It seems we owe our lives to _the widow_ and _the archer_ as you so scathingly call them."

"I don't owe anyone _shit," _Loki had snarled back, for the concept stung him - until he shrugged it off seconds later – "They _owed _me remember? Besides what _we? _It was only my life that was in danger."

"Your life –" Thor shrugged in the darkness as they lay side by side – "My life." It was so painfully simple to Thor that Loki could not reply for several moments. Thor heard him swallow hard and squeezed his hand – "Loki – are you alright?" There was a pause in which Loki tried to find words to lie but in the end made only a careful _mmhmm _noise that told Thor all he needed to know. He had hauled Loki, resisting but barely, into his arms and held him close and warm.

Now, after too many weeks on the road, they were both ready to stop moving. Thor was not wholly convinced by Loki's assertions that they were nearly there but he wanted to believe it enough that he was beginning to. He hoped they really were as well for the countryside they now rode through was beautiful, the air clean and the skies blue and fresh as water with increasingly a greater and greater hint of the sea. When, one pleasant afternoon, they finally stumbled, almost unawares upon the harbour town of Massalia Loki has to restrain himself from yelling with delight. As it is he bursts forth in a rush of excitement –

"We're nearly there! The villa is just five miles to the east of the city! We'll be there by tonight Thor! We're nearly there!" Thor has to keep himself from laughing at the way Loki positively bounces in his seat but then – finally on actually seeing the end of their journey the thousand practical questions that never occurred to him before suddenly come flurrying into his brain –

"Loki – this place hasn't been visited in what – decades?"

"No why?"

"Well how will you survive without servants? Do we even have any currency in this country? What will we eat when we get there?"

"Oh it's fine," Loki breezes – "It's all taken care of."

"Forgive me for asking but – how?"

"Do you think places like this are just left to rot when their owners are away? Thor, it doesn't matter how rarely a Roman uses his – his well holiday house I suppose – don't think the servants aren't under permanent instruction to inspect him at any time. There's an old couple who keep the place going as house keeper and cook and I've not only written to them in the past to introduce myself should I ever need to use the place, I've written in the last few weeks to let them know we're coming! Honestly I _am _quite clever you know."

"I – never doubted it," Thor smiles.

"Furthermore, I asked them in my writings to stock the kitchens- for which, thank the gods- because I don't know about you but I am _hungry _– and for some decent food too. Also we have a vineyard and I've travelled all this way with a bag full of priceless gemstones. Oh yes, did I mention I was disgustingly rich?"

"Well disgusting anyway," Thor grins, warming to Loki's infectiously good mood.

"You're a pig Thor," Loki says, amiably, as they ride back towards the countryside – "But I still love you."

On second thoughts, Loki supposes, he might have got out of this if he had been a little cooler but he immediately realises what he has just said and reins his horse to a sudden standstill, blushing furiously. He could swear to the gods that the birds stopped singing.

"I just meant –" he begins. Thor stops beside him, smiling faintly, though his heart is glowing to light a world of night time.

"You still – what now Loki?" He presses, teasingly, knowing Loki won't say it again, incredulous that he said it at all.

"Shut up Thor," Loki says, as casually as he can, chest shuddering as he fights to breathe normally, kicking his horse back into a trot – "Shut the fuck up."

_x_

**Oops, Loki dunna thing! Rapidly hurtling towards our happy ending people I am sorry to say the next chapter will be our ****_last. _****Yep. Unless I fall so much in love with Loki's villa that I have to write a sequel set there at some point. Distinct possibility. :-)**


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